All-star event will stay at Lowe's

The Labor Day weekend event at Darlington was moved to California.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- NASCAR's annual all-star race will remain at Lowe's Motor Speedway next season as part of the 36-race, Nextel Cup schedule released Tuesday.
The Nextel All-Star Challenge will be run May 22 at Lowe's, marking the 18th consecutive year the all-star event will be run at the Concord track.
NASCAR has been toying with the idea of moving the race for several years, and had a prime opportunity to do so next season when Nextel replaces R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. as sponsor of the series.
RJR has been the longtime sponsor of the race, called The Winston since its inception in 1985. The all-star event has been held at Lowe's every year but one, when it moved to Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1986.
Moved to California
As planned, the traditional Labor Day weekend event that had been held at Darlington Raceway for 54 consecutive races was moved to California Speedway as the suburban Los Angeles track expanded to two dates in 2004.
California Speedway will run its traditional spring event on May 2. Its second race will be Sept. 5, under the lights.
The Southern 500 at Darlington will now be run on Nov. 14, and be the penultimate race in the Nextel Cup Series title chase.
The switch was all part of NASCAR's "Realignment 2004 and Beyond" plan, designed to move races out of the crowded Southeastern market and into large cities.
As a result, North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham lost its second race date -- it was given to California -- and the tiny track will hold its only event of the year on Feb. 22.
No new venues
There were no new venues announced in the 2004 schedule, and no events were moved from Sunday afternoon's to Saturday nights, which had also been a possibility.
The only other change involved the order of the spring races at Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway. The two will switch their order from the previous year's schedule, with Martinsville being run April 18 and Talladega on April 25.
The schedule begins with the Budweiser Shootout kicking off Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 7.
The season-opening Daytona 500 will be run on Feb. 15, and the season-ending race will be held Nov. 21 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The series will visit 23 tracks in 19 states.