I've seen rainout and snow out, races canceled because it was too hot or too cold, but I've never seen a race canceled because of a Pope. Pope Francis’s visit to the Philadelphia area has caused Bridgeport to reschedule their races this weekend. This has to be a first.

Hell's frozen over

The reasoning of the cancellation is that they are closing the Schuylkill Expressway (Route 76) for two days for the Pope's visit. That should cause a nightmare of gridlock and it would have been impossible for fans and racers to make their way to Bridgeport Speedway for the races. Certainly a good call in my opinion.

Bruce Eckel

I agree! I'm not going to head in that direction any this weekend!

Guess you could call that "Poped out"! Bob

Or excommunicated...

Why don't they fly him in a helicopter wherever he's going and not inconvenience tens of thousands of people.

That's kinda cold!Bob

More like divine intervention.

I teach in a Philadelphia Suburban Catholic High School (Bucks County) and we have been closed since Wednesday not just because of the Pope's visit but there is a large World Meeting of Families going on and the Pope's visit is in conjunction to the meeting. I live in Lansdale, PA and my area will have limited access for people living near a train station on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. As of now, we are not sure if my school will be open on Monday as that area is also a staging area for a train line as well as backup staging area for National Guard Troops. We were told that Monday will be treated as a "snow day", that is as of now we are open, but we might get a call at 5:00 am to stay home. By the way, my wife and I are enjoying watching the Pope on tv from Virginia Beach, VA. We decided to get out of town early on when all of the planning was being announced but had to come 6 hrs to find a room as no room could be found in our price range in NJ, DE, or MD, looks like a lot of people got out of town also. There will be racing next week somewhere.