Days of Blunder

Brace yourselves folks we are actually going to talk about NASCAR. Another topic that will get either fan or hate mail. Or any response i hope. For anyone who did not know the Auto Club 500 took place Sunday at the, you guessed it, Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. The race itself seemed to have gone on without any problem. The big isuue I have is the location of the race.

NASCAR five years ago took this date away from Rockingham Speedway in North Carolina, and gave it to Fontana. This is not the one and only case where staple tracks have lost races to newer tracks out west. Darlington Raceway in South Carolina gave up its traditional Labor Day weekend spot to Fontana and lost one of it's two races so Texas Motor Speedway could have another.

While I am not just complaining that they are taking away too many races in the East to expand to the Western fans, they need to be a bit more intelligent about it. Fontana having a race last weekend was only able to sell about half of their seats, and this has been a problem for this track in the past. While the economy could contribute to that there is just something about haveing a race in Southern California the same night as the Oscars, that will make it always be second place.

That is a tough race to have that early. Tracks like Richmond and Rockingham have had weather issues in the past, but there are plenty of warm weather places such as previously mentioned Texas or Phoenix that sell out every time they host a race.

The other problem is the fact they are removing original tracks for the same cookie-cutter shaped track. While original designs like the short track of North Wilkesboro, and the egg shaped track of Darlington are being slowly removed tracks like Kansas and Chicago are appearing with the same exact 1.5 mile tri-oval shaped used by another four different venues.

There has been talk of taking a race from New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a track that has sold out everytime in the past decade for another race in Las Vegas. While is s need to sretch out a fan base, there is also an ability to overdue it and lose some true fans who have been there for many years.