(Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
By Aaron Bearden

Main Takeaway

I’ve never been to Auto Club Speedway, but I sure am going to miss the place. 

When it first came around in the late 1990s, the track known as California Speedway seemed symbolic of everything wrong with ‘modern’ NASCAR to diehard fans. 

While favorite short tracks like North Wilkesboro Speedway and Rockingham Raceway were fading off the schedule, cookie-cutter tracks in key markets had been propping up. Though unique in its two-mile design, Fontana was among the key changes associated with this. 

The track was important. It brought NASCAR back into Southern California after nearly a decade away, reaching a key market at a time when the sport was set to explode in popularity. But it was symbolic of NASCAR perceivably abandoning its roots, a point driven home when the track gained an extra race at the expense of Darlington Raceway. 

The sport’s diehards seemed eager to dislike the track. And for its first decade of racing, they had every reason to. Most races at the venue were snoozers, won in dominant fashion. Only open wheel cars seemed capable of putting on a good show. 

But over time, as the track’s asphalt began to wear, the racing product improved. The field raced two, three and even four-wide. Iconic finishes became a standard occurrence, from Kevin Harvick’s last-gasp ride around Jimmie Johnson to the Denny Hamlin-Joey Logano war that left Hamlin injured, established Logano as a star and somehow ended with Kyle Busch in victory lane. 

Fontana lost its second race. But the track’s remaining early-season date became a highlight on the calendar. A favorite track of drivers and fans alike, regardless of the rules package. 

Now, a quarter-century after its debut, the track’s a goner – at least in its current layout. Fontana is set to be off the schedule for 2024, and perhaps even 2025. NASCAR has voiced intention to turn it into a short track, leaving the remainder of the property to be sold for a reported estimate of $544 million, per the Sports Business Journal.

This decision is a bittersweet one. Fans have clamored for more short tracks on the Cup schedule, even as the Next Gen car struggles to deliver the same excitement on them as prior generations of cars. The track’s change is coming at a time when the sport is right-sizing and showing some efforts to return to its short track roots, even as it also attempts bold new races on city streets and in football stadiums. 

Fontana could remain a gem on the NASCAR calendar as a short track. The western market’s been void of these facilities throughout the series’ history and those fans deserve a proper venue to see their favorite stars battle in tight confines. It would also keep NASCAR in the area, unlike after the closures of Ontario Motor Speedway and Riverside International Raceway in the past. 

But Fontana’s old layout has become a gem of its own over the past 20 years. That’s why it’s so bittersweet to lose it.

NASCAR may return to the same area in the future, but it’ll never quite be the same. 

 

Good, Bad and Ugly

Good: KFB bounces back

When Kyle Busch climbed out of his No. 8 Chevrolet after the race, he did so to a sound not heard much throughout his career. 

Applause. 

For years Busch has worn the black hat as NASCAR’s de-facto villain. He’s been a dominant force on-track, but often ruffled feathers with his ego and attitude outside of the cockpit. 

The circumstances weren’t entirely Busch’s fault. He arrived in Cup at the fan-favorite Hendrick Motorsports for Chevrolet, but was the younger brother of the fiery Kurt Busch and shifted to the less-beloved Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing as part of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s massive shift to Hendrick in 2008. That made the Nevadan easy to root against. Throw in his crash with Earnhardt that spring at Richmond Raceway, and Busch became a full-fledged heel in the eyes of many of the sport’s fans. 

He hasn’t always enjoyed it, but Busch has filled that villainous role for the better part of 15 years. Yet this year, things seem to have changed. 

Busch found himself out at JGR after a tenuous summer of contract disputes, gone in favor of rising star (and the team owner’s grandson) Ty Gibbs. Now he’s found a new home at RCR, the longtime home of Earnhardt Jr.’s father, Dale Earnhardt. He’s arrived at the Chevrolet squad after three difficult seasons – years that made some wonder if Busch would ever be a true title contender again.

For the first time in his career, Busch has entered a situation that’s made him relatively easy to root for. And he’s quickly made good on it. 

It took Busch just three races to score his first Cup win. The two-time Cup champ passed Ross Chastain for the lead prior to final pit stops and never looked back at Auto Club Speedway, claiming his 61st-career victory in comfortable fashion. 

He’s also been in contention in each of the past two races, lining up alongside eventual winner Martin Truex Jr. on the final restart at the Busch Light Clash and leading into overtime at the Daytona 500. 

The expectation is that many wins will follow. Spotter Derek Kneeland indicated as much when Busch took the checkered flag, saying “welcome to RCR, the first (win) of many.” 

Will they all be met with the cheers Busch found in Southern California? 

It’s difficult to tell. But for right now, Busch and the No. 8 team are firing on all cylinders and giving fans a new pairing to cheer for. 

 

Bad (But Pretty): The weather

What a rotten deal Saturday was for the fans, drivers and teams. 

For the entire day, NASCAR and its track-drying operation did what they could to make racing happen. The sanctioning body waited through rain, snow and weepers, quickly pulling the plug on both practice and qualifying for both competing tours. 

But near the end of the day, there seemed to be a silver lining. A sliver of hope for some racing. The track was dried, Xfinity Series drivers were called to their cars and engines were fired. 

Then, just as they we rolling through pace laps to get to the green flag, it rained again. 

There isn’t much NASCAR could do about the weather. And to its credit, the snow atop the nearby mountains added to the backdrop for Sunday’s races. It just took a bummer of a Saturday to get to that point. 

 

Ugly: A big wreck in the pack 

Before Chastain could contend for the win, he played a small part in a sizable shunt that impacted a host of Cup competitors. 

Just prior to halfway, the Trackhouse Racing star stacked up behind Joey Logano after the defending champion didn’t go when Chastain expected him to. That set off a chain reaction behind the pair, causing a crash that included nine drivers. 

Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, Aric Almirola and Ryan Preece were all knocked out of the race by the crash. Early leader Ryan Blaney continued on, but was uncompetitive with damage. Ty Dillon, Justin Haley, Todd Gilliland and Cody Ware were also involved in the accident. 

“I took off on the restart and went from second to third gear and all of a sudden everybody in front of us just stopped,” Almirola said. “I think the leader was just playing games, trying to prevent the runs coming from behind and they stopped in the middle of the restart zone was right about where they should have been accelerating. 

“It was just a huge accordion effect. We were back in 16th, so everybody just started stacking up and you can’t stop on a dime. It’s disappointing to get wrecked out of the race like that on a silly Mickey Mouse restart, but I should have known better.”

Almirola’s teammate, Ryan Preece, criticized the accident and how “it’s kind of stupid, to be honest with you on a professional level and we all wreck on a restart.” 

Fontana is a track known for wild restarts and intense battles. But on this restart the only thing that ensued was calamity. 

 

Good: Nemechek rolls to victory lane

Kyle Busch wasn’t the only one to issue a statement of intent on Sunday. 

John Hunter Nemechek wasted little time taking advantage of his full-time Xfinity Series opportunity with Joe Gibbs Racing, prevailing in the second race of the year. It was Nemechek’s third series victory and the first since Oct. 2021 at Texas Motor Speedway. 

The North Carolinian has finished first and second in the season’s first two races. That’s a good sign from a driver who arguably regressed last year in his second Craftsman Truck Series season for Kyle Busch Motorsports. Nemechek was the championship favorite heading into the season, but finished just fifth in the standings with three fewer wins and two fewer top-fives than his five-win 2021 campaign. 

Nemechek’s diminished stats left some concern that he might not be the contender Gibbs and Toyota want him to be at the Xfinity Series level. He’s quickly proving those notions to be false. 

 

Good (and A Bit Ugly): Corey LaJoie’s crazy day

Corey LaJoie had a long afternoon in the Sunshine State, but it ended on a positive note. 

Let’s just start with the bad news: If you saw a wreck in the opening two hours of the race, LaJoie was probably involved in it. The second-generation driver started by accidentally spinning 2012 Cup champ Brad Keselowski. 

Minutes later he was caught up in another accident, playing the middle part of a three-car sandwich that fought for the same spot on track. LaJoie made contact with Ryan Blaney up top and slid down into AJ Allmendinger, sending the latter driver careening toward the inside wall. 

Lastly he went for a ride himself, spinning through the infield after contact with Tyler Reddick. 

But at the end of the day, LaJoie rallied and scored a solid 14th-place result. The first driver he hit, Keselowski, rebounded to finish in the top-10. 

It was a long day for them both, but they were able to laugh it off at race’s end. 

 

Good: What a save!

Wow. Wow. Wow. 

Okay, so this isn’t technically a save. He did hit the wall, after all. But Sheldon Creed avoided what could have been a massive collision with the inside wall after a misjudged block of Josh Berry resulted in a spin for Creed down the back stretch. 

Just take a quick moment and appreciate this one. 

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