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So just how exciting was Sunday's California 500? Does NASCAR need to do something to make the action here better?
Crew chief Drew Blickensderfer and crew rip off a brilliant pit stop late for Matt Kenseth, giving him the edge he needed to win the California 500 (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
By Mike Mulhern
mikemulhern.net
FONTANA, Calif.
Some locals here in the neighborhood are worried that California's Auto Club Speedway may be heading down the same road to economic extinction as Riverside Raceway and Ontario Motor Speedway.
Whether or not that's the case, for some 10 years now the racing here has been pretty much the same – boring, follow-the-leader runs, with drivers generally strung out around the two-mile oval.
So it's no surprise that Sunday's California 500 played to another less-than-sellout crowd of some 70,000 (according to the LA Times), in this 92,000-seat arena on the western edge of Los Angeles.
The crowd Sunday was perhaps as good as could be expected, considering the economic climate. Saturday's Truck-Nationwide doubleheader pulled about 15,000.
Still, the basic issue here isn't really the crowd as much as it is the product out on the track.
If this were a Talladega or Daytona, the place might be packed.
The deal is this – NASCAR needs to give Gillian Zucker, this track's promoter, a better product to sell in this the biggest market this sport plays in.
Even NASCAR veterans in the garage concede the racing here is, well, boring, except for the first few laps after a restart.
But what to do about it, to make for more exciting action here?
This track is virtually a copy of Michigan International Speedway, which once hosted some of the best action on the stock car tour…back when speeds were much slower than today. In Sunday's 500 drivers were running into the 14-degree-banked first turn at 210 mph, compared to the 190 mph they ran into the 31-degree-banked turns at Daytona.
Michael Waltrip last year recommended NASCAR put restrictor plates on these engines, to bunch up the field, as at Talladega and Daytona.
However that suggestion has gone nowhere.
Matt Kenseth (L) and track president Gillian Zucker (R) celebrate in victory lane after Kenseth's win (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Drivers pooh-pooh it, and Zucker, who runs this track for the France family's International Speedway Corp., says NASCAR officials have told her plate engines here just wouldn't work, according to computer simulations.
Of course the easiest way to check that out would be to put some plates on these cars and run some laps Monday, with the track already rubbered in, and teams heading up the road four hours to Las Vegas.
Or compare Saturday's Nationwide race here to Sunday's Cup race – the Nationwide engines do run restrictor plates, and they make about 630 horsepower, compared to the 830-plus horsepower in Cup engines.
But all that may be academic, with NASCAR officials apparently disinterested in making any significant changes to the Cup cars.
Crews here say that Nationwide racing here is better than Cup racing not only because of the horsepower differences but because of the chassis differences – Nationwide cars can run a much 'softer' suspension than Cup cars, which essentially have no suspension at all, with cars designed to run on 'bump-stops,' rather than normal springs.
However Zucker, who has been a dynamo promoter in this key market, declined last night to criticize NASCAR executives for not giving her any better product to sell.
Zucker, pointing to her staff's work in attracting a crowd that includes fans from all 50 states, including Alaska, and 12 different countries, said "that says a lot about the passion of these fans, that they're willing to travel here from such far distances.
And Zucker says the chief item on her agenda at the moment is to have this particular race moved to April, possibly in a swap with Phoenix International Raceway.
"I've said all along I want April and October, and I got October (this year), and I'll keep fighting for April," Zucker said, in an upbeat assessment during the 500, smiling and laughing and optimistic that things are improving here.
The product on the race track here? To be blunt, it's not very good.
"I disagree," Zucker said. "The product on the race track is great. It's just a different type of racing from what you see at different tracks around the country.
"If you know a lot about the sport, and you watch the racing back in the pack, the different things that are going on in the pack, you'll see it. This is a wide, flat track that offers a driver a lot of opportunities.
"Now a NASCAR fan who is enthusiastic about a Bristol or a Daytona or a Talladega, when they see this they see a different type of racing.
"But we've been looking at it – we've been looking at it to see if there is a way to find something that is more attuned to what they would like to see…with the way attention spans are today.
"We haven't landed on anything that will make it better than it is now. But that doesn't mean we're not still exploring it."
Why not just put some plates on some of these cars and run a few laps Monday and see what happens?
"There is great modeling that engineers can do now, for simulation, and we've looked at that for this track," Zucker said. "When Michael Waltrip brought up the question last year, we looked at it to see what it might be all about.
"And it's just a bad plan. It doesn't work."
In computer simulation.
"They can take the telemetry from these cars and put together a program that simulates what it would be like for all 43 cars on the track," Zucker said.
"What you have at Daytona and Talladega is more than just a 'plated' car, you also have a draft.
"People who know a lot more about this than I do have explained it to me. And what they have shown me is it (plates here) doesn't work.
"So on to the next idea.
"But it doesn't mean that there isn't an idea out there….and we're continuing to explore that. If there is something out there, we'll find it.
"The ideas we've explored so far are not things we are comfortable will make a change that is in the best interests of the race fans.
"And most of the changes being proposed are very expensive."
Wait a minute. Reality check here – running a Daytona car-of-tomorrow at this track with a Daytona plate engine wouldn't be any more expensive than running a Daytona car at Daytona, would it?
Changing the track itself has been suggested, as was done twice at Homestead. But Zucker says the surface here, the asphalt, "is just coming into its own.
"When you talk to drivers about this surface, they love it."
Hey, hold on here. How many tickets are these drivers buying themselves? And some of these drivers are making over $30 million a season….
Maybe they should go up and sit in the stands for a race or two here and see what the problem is. Maybe they should get up there and talk with some of these fans and get their assessment.
Maybe NASCAR executives need to take a good look in the mirror and ask if they are really doing everything they can to give Zucker and her staff a product on the track that they can really sell in this, one of the world's biggest markets.
After all, Zucker is a good salesman.
"I am a good at selling stuff, our whole team is…and I think we've proved that with this crowd here today," she says.
Jamie McMurray (26) leads the field to the green flag to start the NASCAR Sprint Cup series Auto Club 500 at California's Auto Club Speedway (Photo by Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)
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"The product on the race
"The product on the race track is great. It's just a different type of racing from what you see at different tracks around the country".
Zucker must be watching the race with her sleep mask on. The main reason that the racing is different is because it's boring. I'm okay with leaving one race here to reach the L.A. market and to attend a different venue, but one is enough. The only good solution to improve the racing here is to undo the original decision by NASCAR to move a race here from Darlington. That was done because of poor attendance at Darlington and the opportunity for better TV ratings at California, correct? Darlington now draws only 10,000 less than California, and the TV ratings for the Darlington race last season were also better than the Labor Day race at California. The racing is better at the "Lady in Black" and it's a track a lot of drivers don't like (i.e. the best racing is usually at tracks most drivers don't like). We already had two Michigan's on the schedule, and now there are 4 with California pretty much being a replica of the Brooklyn Hills circuit. Though there are subtle differences in the banking and turns between the two tracks, but the layout and the racing are the same: boring. The only thing to usually look forward to is that somebody that's not supposed to win will win due to gambling on fuel. That's not a good reason to keep a date with a track. Take one race each away from California and Michigan, and give it to a track where the racing is better, or at worst, different.
Darlington is worthless,
Darlington is worthless, utterly worthless.
fireballroberts, Darlington only draws "well" now because it's down to one date, and it barely is able to support that one date. The racing at Darlington is atrocious - there is no passing to speak of, the surface is lousy, and the only action comes when there are crashes. Darlington needs to be completely rebuilt into a modern ultrawide 1.5-mile true oval like the old Atlanta, with a surface that allows teams to skip tire changes instead of having to pit every 40-50 laps, before it deserves any consideration for a second date.
Worthless? I don't think so.
Worthless? I don't think so. The track is tight and makes for tough passing, but that's what makes it great. Somebody is always trying to make a pass, whether they complete it or not. Darlington made $10 milion worth of improvements, and is still in the process of additional upgrades. The track had many issues before the improvements began, and that's why attendance had fallen. Four straight sellouts since the improvements were made, the biggest being the addition of lights. The track surface makes for some great strategy tug-of-war after long green flags, and the real racers seem to rise to the top there because it is "too tough to tame". If they slowed the cars down to half the speeds they run at Darlington, the racing there would still be more exciting than at California at full speed. Bringing the Labor Day race back to Darlington, where it should be, would likely bring another sellout because it would now be a night race and not durning the day in the sandhills summer heat as it used to be.
The racing at California
The racing at California needs improvement. This weekend proves that. The problem, however, is not with the cars. It is with the track. The track races like a big, flat track. California, Phoenix, Indy, Pocono, New Hampshire and Milwaukee all have the same issue: during long green flag runs, the field gets strung out. One or two cars run away from the field. There often is great racing in the back of the pack, but that doesn't play well on TV. All the sophisticated fans who want to travel to this track already are. Local casual fans will not go to the track if they don't see great racing on TV.
Putting restrictor plates on the cars won't help. It will kill their throttle response, which is needed at this track. As DW pointed out during the race, drivers need to back out of the throttle entering the turns. If the throttle response is not there, the cars will not accelerate out of the turns.
Restrictor plates work at Talladega and Daytona because there is enough banking to support high speeds in the turns. California is too flat for the cars to maintain speeds higher than 150 in the turns. Slowing the cars 20 mph in the straits (from 200 to 180) still means the drivers will have to back out of the throttle entering the turns.
Handling will still be key to success at California. The cars will still be strung out - only slower. The races will be even more boring than they are today.
A more effective, long-term solution is to restructure and repave the track. It took two attempts to get it right at Miami, but we should take the lessons we learned at that track and apply them to this track. Add progressive banking, change the transitions appropriately and let the boys race.
Throttle response argument is
Throttle response argument is hot air.
Decklid, here are the problems -
1 - That complaint surfaced in 1988 at Daytona and people claimed there could not be any passing; it blew up right away when the lead in the 1988 500 changed ten times in the first 25 laps and bounced around on and off after that. "If the throttle response is not there, the cars will not accelerate out of the turns." So what? When they ran restrictor plates at New Hampshire in 2000 the cars came off the turns fine; there wasn't much passing because the draft wasn't there for those cars as it was (and is) with the Modifieds.
2 - Slowing the cars 20 MPH on the straights doesn't mean the drivers will back off entering the corners - far from it; with slower straightaway speeds the drivers will be able to flatfoot it through the corners, and do so more safely.
3 - The key to passing remains the draft, and the one benefit of the COT has been that there is a potential drafting effect with them. Get the cars able to run open throttle and that drafting effect can come into play.
They redid Miami and it's worse now than it was before. They had it right when Miami was a 3/5-scale Ontario Motor Speedway clone and there was a stunning amount of passing up front. Progressive banking is bunk.
1 - The draft at Daytona and
1 - The draft at Daytona and Talladega makes the restrictor plates work, and the fact that the drivers do not have to let off of the accelerator because of the banking. Restrictor plates will have little effect on the racing on tracks where drivers will still have to lift heading into the corners.
2 - The cornering speeds at California were 140-150, depending on the tirewear. Even with restrictor plates lowering the straightaway speeds to 180, the drivers would still have to lift in the turns. Restrictor plates might tighten the field up a little over a long green flag run, but I don't think it would improve the racing as the simulation models have suggested. Slower cars are able to keep pace at Daytona and Talladega because of the draft. At California, the draft will not come into play near as much because the speeds are slower. Thus, the slower cars will still be left behind even with a restrictor plate.
3 - I agree with you about Homestead. I liked it better when it had four distinct corners. The drivers who did not like the track started squawking right after John Nemechek was killed in the 1997 truck race there. Making drivers comfortable usually makes for boring racing, and the switch at Homestead has proved that. Joe Nemechek's death was certainly a tragedy, but one that could have happened at any track where the speeds are similar.
History and drafting. I'd
History and drafting.
I'd like to know just what those computer simulation models specifically said and what premises went into them. Fireball, you are correct about the effectiveness of the draft at the present plate tracks, though I feel you miss that when the speeds at Daytona shot to 200 and above drivers were struggling more and more to hold it wide open - not to mention struggling to stay on the ground.
Fontana is overall similar to Michigan, and when NASCAR ran restrictor plates there and elsewhere in the early 1970s the racing wasn't harmed at all. Indeed, the drivers were able to corner better with the plates. NASCAR mandated smaller carburators in 1976 when small-block engines began reaching the speeds restrictor-plated big blocks were reaching just five years earlier; they ran the small carbs at Atlanta, Charlotte, Michigan, etc. and the drivers found they could flatfoot it or get close to it through the corners with the smaller carbs.
I'm not sold that with restrictor plates the drivers would not be able to flatfoot it at Fontana, though I'm not going to deny that a "still have to lift" scenario is impossible.
What a lot of people keep missing is that the draft used to be a big deal even at places like Michigan, and with speeds still in the high 170s at Fontana it would seem that the draft would become a factor again - after all it was a factor at Michigan for many years and also at places like Charlotte. Even in the 1990s there were some races where the draft became a factor, such as in Michigan's June 1991 400-miler and also the 600 at Charlotte in 1995 - Ernie Irvan even stated outright during the TBS telecast that drivers were expressing disbelief that the draft was working there - and Pocono that August and the following June when they repaved it; in that period some were crediting the changes in bodies and spoiler sizes in the debut of the 1995-6 Monte Carlo for making the draft work again.
Yes, handling and track position would still matter a great deal, but it seems that history indicates that in a restrictor plate scenario at Fontana the draft would matter more than a lot of people think it would.
I would rather get rid of
I would rather get rid of restrictor plates altogether. The racing at Daytona and Talladega just begs for a big wreck, and it usually happens. Some fans like it, because they like wrecking more than racing. The engines at those tracks are already highly specialized because they have to function differently with the plates on them, so if the engines are different why not just reduce the cubic inches at those tracks to where the cars can run wide open under 200 mph? I would rather give the racing and throttle response back to the drivers rather than attributing their good performance to the restrictor plates helping some to keep up that otherwise would not. NASCAR probably does not want the different engines because it would be more to check than just adding a plate, but it would reduce the number of wrecks by spreading out the cars and giving some throttle response back to the drivers.
The plates are permanent.
The plates are permanent. People who gripe about "the big one" wrecks ignore that it's always the smaller wrecks that injure people. The idea that spreading the cars out and giving some throttle response back would help matters is nonsense, because multicar crashes are common to a lot of tracks and throttle response is overrated to begin with - it doesn't benefit anyone at Fontana, or Vegas, or Bristol, or anywhere else.
Reducing cubic inches was tried in a test period in late 1990 or '91 and NASCAR found the smaller engine made the cars run faster than present-day engines in plated form. There was also the failure of the V6 experiment in the BGN series in the late 1980s - speeds increased and engine reliability declined.
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