Racing gods' revenge?
To borrow one of the catch phrases from ESPN's Stuart Scott, Gillian Zucker needs a hug.
Actually, everyone that works at California Speedway, er, Auto Club Speedway, could use a hug. Or better yet, a break. Because even though their Fontana, Calif.-based facility has never been a favorite of mine, last night's descent into weeper-driven madness is starting to make me wonder if the racing gods have it in for the two-mile oval. And I'm starting to feel for them.
In case you passed out last night, rain delayed the start of the Auto Club 500 for about two-and-a-half hours, and the race ended up having two water-assisted crashes in the first 21 laps -- the second one putting the race under a red flag for an hour and change. Sixty-six laps of green-flag racing ensued after that, but the rains came back.
When track officials were unable to dry out the speedway, NASCAR postponed the Sprint Cup race to 1 p.m. today (Ch. 25) and the Nationwide Series event to approx. 4 p.m. today (ESPN2). Their final announcement came around 2 a.m. ET.
No rain is expected in today's forecast, so expect the weepers -- tiny streams of water that seep through the seams between the asphalt track -- to be gone. But for Zucker, the Fontana track president, the troubles appear to be continuing.
Zucker has a thankless job. First and foremost, she's trying to sell auto racing in a market that can easily survive without her track's exploits. Not only that, as ESPN The Magazine's Ryan McGee points out, she has plenty more problems to deal with. What if Bruton Smith gets that second NASCAR Cup date he craves for his Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a place that isn't too far from California and a place he has poured obscene amounts of cash into?
But to me, I think there's also some supernatural forces at play. Traditionalists are still honked off at how California's second Cup date came to be. In 2004, the Southern 500 at Darlington, S.C., one of the cornerstone events of the sport, was seemingly sacrificed in the name of progress and moved to the Fontana track, leaving the "Lady in Black" with just one Cup event in May. Since then, California's once-solid attendance in its one-race days has plummeted while its reputation for a lack of side-by-side racing has remained intact.
Yesterday's events just continued the wave of bad hits this track has taken. And considering that this incident stands as the most freakish of the lot (witness the near-unison opinion among the drivers that NASCAR started the race too early), I'm starting to think that the racing gods may be taking overdue revenge for what they and a lot of flesh-and-blood stock car fans see as a crime against tradition.
UPDATE (3:15 p.m.): Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards has won the Auto Club 500 in Fontana, Calif. under caution after Dale Jarrett wrecked on the final lap. Edwards made the race-winning pass with 14 laps to go, when he chased down and got by second-place finisher Jimmie Johnson. Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top five.
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Two days after signing an agreement in principle to unify American open-wheel racing for the 2008 season, Indy Racing League founder Tony George and Champ Car co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven were complimentary of one another in an interview last night on SPEED Channel's motorsports talk show, "Wind Tunnel."
George, who was interviewed from Florida, and Kalkhoven, who was in California, took questions from both co-hosts Dave Despain and Robin Miller, as well as a couple of e-mail and call-in questions from fans. While there weren't many new developments that were revealed in the interview, it appears that based on George's comments, he has all but decided to go with running both the Long Beach Grand Prix and the Indy Japan 300 under IRL sanction on the Apr. 19-20 weekend.
“The whole thing with this thing coming together now is that it’s coming very late and it’s not going to be, you know, a utopia," George said. "We are definitely looking at splitting the weekend between Japan and Long Beach and we’re gonna do our best to put on a world-class event in both locations. But it’s gonna be tough and those are things we’re gonna start working on."
As for the matter of which Champ Car teams will be making the switch to IndyCar, representatives from several CC squads are expected to take part in an IRL orientation meeting today at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
But Kalkhoven said he wasn't sure which ones were actually going to move.
"I know of a few teams that have committed to do it, and I know some others who are seriously considering it," he said. "They’ve got issues with their drivers whom they’ve contracted who are gonna run road courses, so there are some things to go through. But overall, we’ll say the mood is positive and I believe that there really is goodwill to try and get this thing done.”
Despain asked him if his own PKV Racing team was going to be one of the new squads, but Kalkhoven artfully dodged the question.
“I think we have to wait until [the press conference] on Wednesday," he said.
The IRL will undergo an Open Test this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, then move to Sebring International Raceway for a second Open Test in the first week of March. New teams will have the opportunity to test at both tracks as well during March. The season begins at Homestead on March 29.
UPDATE (2:51 p.m.): The first new team to join the unified IndyCar Series has surfaced. Conquest Racing, which has raced in Champ Car for five years and last raced in the IRL in 2002, will bring two cars to Homestead. One of them will be piloted by Franck Perera, a Frenchman that won last year's Rookie of the Year title in the Champ Car Atlantics division. A second driver will be announced at a later date.
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The final pre-season test of the Formula One season is underway in Barcelona and it's been kicked off in grand style with retired superstar Michael Schumacher taking a spin in Ferrari's 2008 challenger. All teams save for Super Aguri will take part in the three-day test at the Circuit de Catalunya.
The Barcelona test was also deemed the perfect time for Force India to unleash its VJM01 machine onto the track for the first time. Force India is the new team that has risen from the ashes of last year's Spyker squad under the management of Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya.
