Michele Shuman suffers from an invisible disease. That disease is lupus, and it afflicts about 75,000 people in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Some people with lupus get a butterfly-shaped rash on their faces. But many do not, making the disease hard for others to notice. “When you look at someone with lupus, unless they have the rash showing, they don’t look like they have anything wrong with them,“ said Shuman, 54, of Chesterfield County.

There was a flurry of activity throughout the Meadow Event Park yesterday as fairgoers turned out for the final day of the State Fair of Virginia. On one side of the 348-acre site was youth rodeo, where boys and girls roped goats or tried to ride a bucking bull for eight seconds. On another, a standing room only crowd at the Thrill Pit watched as Cindy Regimald of Tinmouth, Vt., won the demolition derby rollover competition by flipping her car the most times—one and three-quarters in the tie-breaker round.

For the past 18 months, the State Fair of Virginia has been talking through the logistics of bringing hordes of visitors, plus funnel-cake vendors and racing pigs, to a new site in rural Caroline County. Now, the planning is giving way to the real thing.

Denny Hamlin jumped out of his car, removed his helmet, pumped his fists a few times and made a beeline across the track to pick up the checkered flag. After jogging back to his car, which he left parked at the bottom of the track, Hamlin climbed back in and did a burnout in front of adoring fans. Finally, after so many hometown heartaches at Richmond International Raceway, Hamlin could crow.

As drivers and crews scramble for top spots going into the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the Richmond region is scrambling to cash in on race weekend when its economic boost is more important than ever. International Speedway Corp. officials announced in July that the Indy Racing League event won’t return to Richmond International Raceway next year, putting more pressure on this weekend’s Chevy Rock & Roll 400 to bring in big bucks in the face of a still-slumping economy.

Mark Martin admits he’d rather play it safe than risk a little slip when it comes to qualifying. But not yesterday. With a lot on the line, the 50-year-old Martin let it all hang out and captured the pole position for tonight’s Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway. Martin turned in a lap of 126.808 mph in qualifying. Starting beside him will be Martin Truex Jr. (126.731). Former Chesterfield resident Denny Hamlin (126.630) will start third, followed by Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne.

The talk around NASCAR garages this week is all about the final spots in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Eleven drivers are competing for eight spots, with the “bubble boys,“ Brian Vickers in 13th and Kyle Busch at 14th, needing big performances from their teams and some bad luck from other teams to sneak into the top 12. This week is not much different from a final exam in school.

Driver Kevin Harvick (right) jokes with former NBA star Brad Daugherty in Concord, N.C. Daugherty is now a NASCAR devotee. The tallest man in NASCAR moves easily through the garages, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the sport and of the history of the sport, works for ESPN and even is part owner of a Sprint Cup team. The tallest man in NASCAR, Brad Daugherty, 6-10, is an unlikely man to be a NASCAR devotee, or so it would seem.

After weeks of negotiations, International Speedway Corp. officials announced yesterday that the Indy Racing League event won’t return next year to Richmond International Raceway.

Before Saturday night’s SunTrust Indy Challenge began, the track announcer proclaimed that it would be “anybody’s race.“ And while that may have been literally true, 16 of the 20 drivers knew that it probably wasn’t going to be their night—after all, they hadn’t had one all year. Each of the eight races so far in the IRL schedule has been won by a driver for Team Penske or its top-tier rival, Target Chip Ganassi. They make their presence known on race week—at RIR, they took the top four qualifying spots, then Ganassi took the 1 and 2 spots with Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti.

As omens go, the start of the SunTrust Indy Challenge seemed to have a very bad one. Jacques Lazier ran into the wall before completing the first lap, bringing out a caution flag. During his interview soon after that—a guy who doesn’t finish a lap gets interviewed?—Lazier managed to say how sorry he was to let down the Novicomm LED Lighting Technology team.

No one is expecting defending champion Tony Kanaan to win tonight’s SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway. He’s still nursing the physical and psychological wounds of a horrific crash during the Indianapolis 500 last month. And he’ll start from the 17th position on the 20-car grid, an unenviable spot on a racetrack where passing is often a monumental challenge.

Two big-time racing circuits, IRL and NASCAR, would benefit greatly from Danica Patrick’s presence in 2010. Patrick seems intrigued by the challenge presented by NASCAR. Danica Patrick is not just a driver on the Indy Racing League circuit. She is “a brand.“ And that brand is . . . “Determined. It’s feminine and, hopefully—I feel awkward talking about myself like this,“ Patrick said recently, “it’s something beautiful, something fast and exciting and inspiring and something iconic that’s never been done before.“

Brian Barnhardt, the Indy Racing League’s president of competition and racing operations, knows his prerace speech to the drivers will include at least a small discourse about the virtues of patience. Whether that recommendation is heeded by tonight’s 20-car field could well determine whether a replay of last year’s carnage—nine caution periods and 102 of the 300 laps run under the yellow flag—is repeated.

Dario Franchitti was determined to prove he could challenge NASCAR’s elite after winning both the 2007 Indianapolis 500 and the Indy Racing League championship. Instead, he struggled mightily during an awkward transition from open-wheel to stock-car racing. He wasn’t exactly a fish out of water, but the Scotsman swam upstream most every weekend.