Will NASCAR want to turn the Busch Light Clash into a points-paying race -- and how?
With tight corners around a quarter-mile, temporary-built track, Sunday’s second consecutive Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was a thinking man’s race once again.
But it was also a thinking fan’s race in another form and fashion that I didn’t hear anyone mention a peep about – but is something one has to wonder about.
In three weeks, February 26 to be precise, NASCAR returns to Southern California for its annual points-paying race at Auto Club Speedway (ACS) in Fontana, roughly about 50 miles east of The Coliseum.
It will be the final race at the Fontana track as a two-mile facility. Literally one day after the checkered flag falls, the track and its grandstands will begin being torn down, with the gameplan of seeing the current track layout converted into a brand new, half-mile track similar to Bristol Motor Speedway.
While NASCAR is optimistic the new facility could be ready by 2025, sometimes you have to have built-in contingencies for weather, natural disasters like earthquakes and the like. So let’s say for argument’s sake that Fontana will not hold another Cup race until 2026, at the earliest.
That means two regular season, points-paying races will have to be relocated to another track within the NASCAR community while ACS is rebuilt.
Could, or better yet, should those two races – essentially replacement events – possibly be held at The Coliseum in place of The Clash?
It’s not as far-fetched of an idea as it seems. While Sunday’s race didn’t exactly draw the sell-out crowd it did last year, it still was a decent turnout, particularly to draw first-time fans who had never attended a Cup race in their lives.
But let’s face it, a non-points paying race is kind of like kissing your sister. Yet, make it a points-paying race and we suddenly have a whole different type of motivation. Sure, new fans will still want to show up, but more importantly, long-time NASCAR fans – particularly those who come out to ACS on a regular basis – will be more inclined to attend a race at The Coliseum, as well.
The facility holds roughly 78,500 seats, so there would be plenty of room for fans to come on out and have a good time. Plus, if the same race date is kept on the schedule – the second or third race of the regular season – that puts us into either very late February or early March.
And, another key factor: the three-race so-called early season “West Coast Swing”, which features Fontana, Las Vegas and Phoenix, can be kept intact, only with The Coliseum taking Fontana’s position on a temporary basis.
NASCAR has other options to replace the lost dates at Fontana in ’24 and ’25. The sanctioning body could give a track that currently has only one race per season and instead give it two, like Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Or, as was the case during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, we could see Daytona International Speedway once again have a road course race held on its twisting and turning infield layout – although I’m not sure if fans really would flock to Central Florida three times in the same year (and potentially for two years straight) to see three races at the World Center of Racing.
Or, perhaps NASCAR could convince city fathers in Los Angeles to one-up Chicago and have its own street course race, as well.
Or how about NASCAR bringing the dormant Chicagoland Speedway or Kentucky Speedway back onto the Cup schedule for a year or two?
From what I’ve heard so far, the new Fontana half-mile will be a state-of-the-art facility that will become a crown jewel for the sport.
It’s just a matter of what NASCAR does until the new track is completed and the green flag falls again.
Let’s go back to The Coliseum idea for a second. First off, I admit I do have to wonder if fans want to see a regular season, points-paying race that is only 150 laps around a quarter-mile track – or to be exact, 37.5 miles in overall length.
That’s just way too short. Maybe not for an exhibition event, but definitely for a points race.
At the very least, NASCAR would likely have to double the length to 300 laps – or 75 miles in overall length – for fans to consider that a “true” race.
And then there’s one other hurdle that would have to be overcome. If you watched either last year’s Clash or this year’s edition, did you notice something … or perhaps, did you notice something that was missing?
There were no pit stalls, no pit crews, no gas cans and no crew chiefs and statisticians on pit boxes. In other words, no pit stops -- none, nada, zero.
That may be a bit more of a problem for NASCAR to overcome, but it isn’t completely insurmountable. Perhaps we could see two or three stages implemented where cars exit The Coliseum tunnel and go outside into the parking lot for a fill-up and tire change during each stage break?
Granted, you’d be taking away one potential advantage to teams, where they would not be able to pit at their usual whim/discretion when they want to do so during in-race and in-stage strategy. There’d be none of that: they’d have to pit on schedule – NASCAR’s schedule, not theirs.
But then, that doesn’t completely take strategy away, it just changes the type of strategy teams will have to employ. Maybe they can go with shorter fuel fill-ups, or maybe skip a stage for new rubber? I can live with that, I think the teams can live with that, and I think the fans can live with it, as well.
Follow Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski