In 1999, driver Greg
Moore was killed during a CART race at the speedway, and three years later, CART stopped coming to Fontana.
Earlier that year, the
IRL ran its first race at the 2-mile speedway, won by current Sprint Cup rookie Sam Hornish. The IRL ran its final race at
the Auto Club Speedway in 2005, won by another Sprint Cup rookie, Dario Franchitti.
With open wheel racing
now extinct at Auto Club Speedway, raising the banking at the track is a practical thought. Raising it to 25 or 30 degrees,
preferably progressively-banked, will give a purpose to restrictor plate racing at the track. Daytona's banked at 31 degrees,
Talladega at 33.
Already at 14 degrees,
the corners at California work to scrub off lots of speed from the Sprint Cup cars, which can enter the turns at speeds over
200 mph. And that's with the current car. The old car could go about 210 in a qualifying run.
Then there's the fact
that the Auto Club Speedway is a "cookie cutter" track. It acts like a sister track to the much older Michigan Speedway in
Brooklyn, MI. Making California a plate race will help to add a uniqueness factor to a track that is similar in length and
corner banking as other tracks. While shorter in length, Kansas Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway are also banked around the
same as California, and shaped similarly.
And then there's the
fact of Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
"Do I go to the Academy Awards
or the NASCAR race? Wait, Vegas is next week; I think I'll go to that race."
That's got to be a question
some people ask themselves. The star power at the Auto Club Speedway was definitely affected by the fact that the Academy
Awards were going on in nearby Los Angeles the same evening. Plus, fans can drive
a not-too-distant 200 miles to Las Vegas for this week's Cup race.
2006 StockCar Review.
