Busch Light Clash was a cautious ... uh, err, caution-filled tale
Let’s say you’re planning a 37½-mile Sunday drive, something that might take 30 minutes or so. But you learn there’s an accident or slowdown every 2½ miles.
You’d find another way to get there, right?
Unfortunately, there weren’t any alternate routes Sunday night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where NASCAR began its Cup Series season with a 37½-mile exhibition race – 150 laps on a temporary quarter-mile egg-shaped oval – and it seemed for a while that nobody would reach the final destination: the checkered flag of the Busch Light Clash.
There were 16 caution flags -- compared with just five in last year's first-ever Clash at the Coliseum -- with enough spinning to make the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair seem inadequate.
Ultimately, Martin Truex Jr. pulled off what most every other driver couldn’t. He didn’t let anyone get to his back bumper, especially after he passed Ryan Preece with less than 30 laps remaining to win the Clash.
Martin Truex Jr., driver of the #19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota, celebrates after winning the NASCAR Clash at the Coliseum at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Truex, who failed to win even one regular-season race last season, as well as missed the playoffs and seriously considered retirement before coming back for at least one more season in 2023, stayed in the top five Sunday and ahead of the mayhem the entire race.
And oh, was there mayhem.
Eric Jones took a hit from Michael McDowell on Lap 17 and spun.
Ryan Blaney spun, with help, of course, seven laps later.
A.J. Allmendinger was the front end of an accordion and spun on Lap 43, Bubba Wallace gave leader Denny Hamlin -- Bubba's boss, no less at 23XI Racing -- a jolt in the back bumper on the restart and, while Wallace drove into the lead, Hamlin fell to 12th.
Then, in order:
* Hamlin spun on Lap 74 after taking a bump from his old hip-check partner Ross Chastain (remember the adventures of those two from last year?).
* Kevin Harvick spun after a cluster of bad luck just after the mid-race break.
* Ty Gibbs took a hit that put him out of the race with 69 laps remaining.
* Allmendinger and Christopher Bell spun four laps later.
* Kyle Busch was hit on the restart when Joey Logano drove extra deep into Turn 3, dropping Busch to 25th place with 64 laps remaining.
(At this point, the FOX broadcast crew made reference to the full moon overhead. As if that was causing all the calamity and not the tiny race track with full-bodied cars and drivers not racing for points.)
* With 44 laps to go, Justin Haley spun out of eighth place, the billiard-like result of a hit from Tyler Reddick, who’d been hit by Chase Briscoe.
* Briscoe was turned three laps later when Reddick took a dive under Kyle Larson, who was shoved into Briscoe.
* With 37 to go, Chastain got into Reddick, who then hit Blaney, who spun into the Turn 2 wall.
At that point, I remembered what TV analyst Clint Bowyer said at the beginning of the broadcast when asked the key to winning. “Don’t get hit from behind,” he said.
This isn’t to say there wasn’t some good racing. Ryan Preece figured out the high line and not only used it to pass Wallace on a restart, he held it through five more restarts and looked like the man to beat. The car balked because of an electrical issue that allowed Truex to take the lead with 25 laps remaining, with Preece finishing seventh.
Kyle Busch rallied from his early spin and drove from 25th to second with seven laps to go before Austin Dillon, Busch's new teammate at Richard Childress Racing, passed him with three laps remaining.
But was it a good race? Heck no, it wasn’t a good race.
That’s my old-school opinion, and I’m clearly not the demographic NASCAR is hoping to reach with this race. To the young fans at the Coliseum and, NASCAR must hope, watching from home, this was more an entertainment event than a race.
I’m not into 40-mph turns, a mid-race break for a rap concert, and “racing” that consists mostly of drivers shoving others out of the way in order to make a pass.
But I get it.
Once upon a time, when I was a kid just getting into racing, that’s the kind of action that hooked me. Char Leah Speedway, a 1/5-mile paved fishbowl in Missouri, was a bump-fest and my first racing hero, Russ Wallace (father of Rusty, Kenny and Mike), was a champion who wasn’t bashful in moving others out of the way.
So I can see the value in an event like the Clash. It was 37½ miles of nonstop bumping and banging.
It’s not the route I would take, but I’ll admit that after almost three months without NASCAR, it was a decent way to spend a Sunday evening.