NASCAR 2010 - Round 2 - Fontana

JRS

JRS

JRS

Soldato
Joined
6 Jun 2004
Posts
19,725
Location
Burton-on-Trent
Posting this now, as I might not get chance before the racing action starts.


Auto Club Speedway, Fontana, CA

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Track Details

Completed : 1997
Distance : 2 miles
Shape : D-shaped oval
Banking : 14° turns, 11° frontstretch, 3° backstretch
Frontstretch : 3,100 feet
Backstretch : 2,500 feet
Seating : 92,000

Auto Club Speedway of Southern California has a history that you might expect a track just 50 miles from Hollywood to have.

The speedway, formerly known as California Speedway, sits on a 568-acre site that once hosted the first steel mill located west of the Rocky Mountains, Kaiser Steel Mill. The mill produced the steel that helped build the Liberty ships used by the Allies to win World War II.

Kaiser Steel went out of business in 1983. Following that, the site fell into such disrepair that it was used in the movie The Terminator to portray a post-Apocalyptic world where men and machines battled each other for supremacy and survival.

Penske Motorsports Inc. purchased the land and completed the track in 1997. The first race held on the track was a Winston West Series race won by Ken Schrader on June 21, 1997. Later that day, Mark Martin won an International Race of Champions event at the new facility. Jeff Gordon won the track's first Cup race the following day.

Auto Club Speedway has also hosted races in the Nationwide and Truck series, as well as events in the IndyCar Series and what is now the Champ Car World Series on its oval and road racing and motorcycle events on its road courses.

In 1999, Penske Motorsports Inc. merged with International Speedway Corporation, bringing California Speedway into the ISC family of tracks. Beginning in 2004, California Speedway's 2-mile oval became the host of two Cup Series races each year, adding a Labor Day weekend event to its roster of activities.

The track was renamed in February 2008.
Click to expand...

2009 Winners:
Cup - Matt Kenseth
GN - Kyle Busch
Trucks - Kyle Busch

As some of you might know, Fontana is just about my least favourite race track in the entire world. It's the epitome of the damage being done to NASCAR - soul-less, rarely with a capacity crowd, and bland in the extreme. Which is presumably why the morons in charge of NASCAR these days took the Labour Day date off Darlington (a true classic track, tough to tame and always chock-full of action) and gave it to this monument to corporate America.

*sigh*

News on the grapevine is that the wing on the CoT will be getting replaced with a spoiler at around round 6-8 (Martinsville, Phoenix or Texas) depending on how testing goes, but the wing may be retained on the plate tracks (Daytona and Talladega). Sounds okay to me, the aero package last weekend seemed pretty good.

Picks for the Cup race win? Jimmie Johnson, in his last six races at this circuit, has an average finish of 2.8 (with 3 wins). I'd say he ought to be a contender, and he'll be out to excise the memory of Daytona (his car was one of those damaged by the disintegrating track surface).
 
I saw in Autosport that Biffle was whining about the way the race ended on several G-W-C's. Typical Roush driver, blaming the rulebook rather than the fact that he just didn't go at the right time in the right lane....

Aaaaaaaanyway. Looking at the Natiowide GN entry list for the race tomorrow, I can't decide who to cheer on. Probably Danica, she was doing alright until she got caught up in someone elses crash at Daytona and it'd be nice to see her do something worthy of all the press attention she's getting!
 
Right, news.

McMurray will line up in pole position, Juan Montoya right alongside him. Full qually results here. Johnson has run quick in practice, another practice session is running right now.

Cloudy at the track at the moment, not sure if that bodes well for the Nationwide race.
 
Nationwide unofficial results.


No real surprises. Feel really sorry for Logano, if he hadn't spun his tyres on the restart then no-one would have caught him. As it was, he got mugged and eventually turned around. At least he still finished fifth. As far as the top two goes - on the one hand I'm glad Biffle got beaten again, on the other I'm not so happy about seeing Kyle Busch in Victory Lane again. I won't deny that the kid has got some serious talent though.

Danica made it to the flag this time, 3 laps down in 31st. Doesn't sound like much, but she is improving all the time. She fell to the back of the back early on, got herself into a rhythm, and started making places and turning faster laps. Fairly solid day all told.
 
Provisional results.

Lot of blown engines - though oddly, none of them were FoMoCo motors. Guess the blue oval boys were babying their cars, becuase the highest place Ford was only 7th (Kenseth).

Two Hendrick and two Childress Chevys locked out the top four spots, so a good day for those guys despite an awful lot of blown Hendrick motors and Jeff Gordon having his go sick at around lap 174. A great way for JJ to bounce back from his Daytona woes as well.

So far, the championship looks like this.
 
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