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Another Sucky Day for Racing


RodneyRodriguez

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Rodney, I like you, do not see racing at that site again. I remember driving past that location when it was still the old Keiser steel mill. The fact that Mr. Penske was able to remediate it, and build that beautiful speedway for only $125mil, still amazes me. NASCAR has sold ($940mil)off about 83% of the land mass around the track, leaving about 80 acres. I have no idea what ISC paid Penske for the track, but I'm betting that NASCAR will be making a tidy sum.

I saw some of the maps of the proposed facilities that are going to inhabit that land. Also included in these maps is the 1/2 mile track. My understanding is that NASCAR is shooting for the track to holding 50 to 75 thousand fans. From just looking at those plan maps, I simply don't see enough room for the track, pits, parking & the grandstands. But there was one thing that I think could offer a bit of hope. Nowhere in those maps showed any residential housing. Everything was tagged as industrial. Plus, there were parking areas adjacent to those industrial areas that may be dual use, for the track and other occupants.

I won't say never, but SoCal has not been good for stock car racing. Attendance at Fontana hasn't been great. It started out great, but the racing was bad. Once the pavement got worn out, the racing was good, but there wasn't anybody there to see it. If you repave it, the racing will suck again for at least 8-10 years. Ontario Motor Speedway was literally a speed palace. It lasted 10 years. Yes, the land became much too valuable to remain a race track, but there wasn't a fight to keep it either. That was because the fans weren't attending like in the beginning. Riverside was able to hang on longer, not because of attendance, but because it was out in the middle of nowhere. Then nowhere disappeared, and there was housing almost completely surrounding it. I truly hope that they build that track at Fontana though. But here is something to think about. Every time that NASCAR has done a major facelift or reconfiguration at a track, they've ALWAYS given out completion dates for all construction, before they even started. They aren't even giving out a start date for Fontana, and 80% of the land is under contract for sale. That right there, is why I don't think that new track will be built. Again, I hope I'm wrong.

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16 hours ago, ron.brown11 said:

Rodney, I like you, do not see racing at that site again.

Ron I agree with you, listening to Denny's podcast this morning on my way to work and some of the cryptic things that were being said sounds like its all over. I think the 1/2 mile idea is just getting everyone's hopes up but nothing will prevail.  I've heard them mention what to do in SoCal while this construction takes place and they keep bringing up Irwindale and racing there.  But looking at the maps I don't know if Irwindale can sustain to hold a Cup race there.  I could be wrong as it has been a good 10+ years since I have been to Irwindale. The one track I think they should look at to use is Kern County.  I know its not close to the LA Market but that's a nice racetrack and plenty of room and its a short track. 

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Josh42 I don't think Irwindale has enough space for a Cup date. They could fit the haulers etc in, but don't have anywhere to park cars. I'm sure that it is possible to set up a remote parking/busing location & service, as they already do some of that for the LA race. They also don't have space for all of NASCAR's tech equipment, so that would have to be figured out. So that just leaves fan seating. If memory serves me, I think they have seating for about 8-10k, if they haven't removed any. They would have to remove a lot of billboards and palm trees around the track to install temp seating. I won't say that it's impossible, but it surely be a large challenge.

Kern County is an amazing facility, and probably the best short track facility in America. I would love to see a Cup race there, as the racing there is fantastic. There would be no problems logistically for the equipment, and race teams. Parking and seating would need to be expanded, but that's doable, as the track owners (also the SRL owners) have land around the track. Here's the only real drawback to Kern. NASCAR doesn't look at Bakersfield as the LA market. If they did, it sure would have cost a lot less for NASCAR to hold the Clash there, instead of all the millions they spent to put on just the first Clash race in LA. Now the construction needs weren't nearly as bad for this year's race, but all the rest probably cost more. 

24nomo the LA market is large, and NASCAR really wants to be there. But the trick to having a permanent track has been, and will continue to be where the track is located. As long as there are residential areas anywhere near a permanent location, that track will like a football player's career in the NFL, Not For Long. And any suitable land locations near the freeway system already have or will soon have houses. 

We are not the only ones that don't think that the 1/2 mile track will be built. Mike Joy made a closing comment yesterday. He basically said that Fontana will be missed, and HOPES that the short track will be built. That was not a ringing endorsement for the very murky plans from NASCAR. I'm certain that he has more inside info than all of us put together, and he sounded like it wasn't really going to happen. I hope that we are all wrong, and that track will be built. But as I said above, I can't think of a single time in the last 20+ years, where NASCAR announced a new project plan, that didn't come with just a start date, but also a completion date too. 

Here's another thing that NASCAR is trying to keep quiet. Fontana is not the only track that they are selling off land from. They are doing it through second and third party companies. That's usually done when either the buying company or the selling company are trying to hide those transactions. Time will tell..

 

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So I finished Denny's Podcast at lunch and he was asked if he thinks the 1/2 mile deal will come out and he said No he doesnt think it will happen.

Interesting tidbit of info he stated when Nascar bought the Fontana property from Penske for he said he thinks it was in the 600 million range that not only did they get Fontana but that also included Nazareth, Rockingham and a couple others i didnt catch.  I thought that Rockingham was owned by someone else so I dont know how much is actually true.

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The bigger issue is cost now. Nate Ryan from NBC Sports had a great piece on this last week and join the Saturday radio show to break it down. To do all of this now imaging the cost that will be involved to remove the current track and then build that new one and have the reconfiguration complete.

Damn shame, makes no business sense honestly. Michigan was in that deal also, and all that is left. 

 

Edited by RodneyRodriguez
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Again, if my memory serves me, Rockingham was bought by Andy Hillinburg. I can't remember if it was from a bankruptcy auction or from former owners. Andy tried to revive it a couple of times, hoping to attract a truck or Xfinity date. He ran some late model shows, I think an ARCA show, but it didn't work out. I can't remember if he was able to sell it, or if it was foreclosed on. I don't recall Penske ever having anything to do with Rockingham.

I do believe that Nazareth was involved in the Fontana deal, but not because NASCAR planned any racing there. The writing was already on the wall for racing there. As in it was going to go away. CART had already taken it off their schedule. I think NASCAR only ran a couple of races after acquiring the property. I believe NASCAR bought it because they were desperately trying to get Penske out of the track ownership business (or Penske wanted out of the track owner business, and NASCAR was the perfect buyer). That's also probably why NASCAR also ended up with Michigan. Until Penske bought Indy, he's been out of the track ownership since the sale of those properties. NASCAR was sitting on mountains of cash at that time. So they could afford to buy Nazareth, and not race there. Taking a big tax write-off in the process, as the track that hasn't got a Cup or INDY car race date is losing money. By waiting to sell, the price just went up, due to encroachment around the track.

I agree Rodney, the cost looks beyond impossible. If NASCAR sold 80% of the current land at Fontana for approximately $940mil, once that industrial park is under construction that remaining 80 acres will be worth 3 times what it's worth right now. NASCAR gets paid again.

With NASCAR selling off pieces of property at current race tracks, it makes me think of a couple of things. The RTA has already spoken publicly about holding "exhibition" races at non NASCAR owned tracks in the off season. Well, if the RTA made that public in Nov, is NASCAR building a war chest to try and combat that? I assure you that if the RTA was willing to go public about that, NASCAR knew about it before that Nov announcement. I'm sure that the RTA is trying to use that threat to force NASCAR into increasing the team's percentage in the next TV deal. That's normal labor union tactics. So Is NASCAR trying to offset that loss of revenue? Or is NASCAR thinking about life without NASCAR? Between the tracks owned by SMI, and independent tracks that NASCAR now races on, a new racing series could emerge. Plus, there are smaller tracks around the country that would be happy to host a big league stock car race, ie Kern County, Berlin in MI, Langley VA, Stafford Speedway. Those are just 4 really good facilities around the country. The France family isn't poor by any stretch of the imagination. Jim France is not young. Lisa France Kennedy is independently wealthy from her ownership in NASCAR, plus her husband was a pretty good businessman. I certainly assume that he also had a good amount of life insurance when he died. So that leaves Brian France & Ben Kennedy. I don't see the powers that be allowing Brian anywhere near the helm of NASCAR again. Ben's a young man, that would be stupidly wealthy if all of NASCAR's assets were sold. Would that be enough to close the doors of NASCAR? I don't know, but there was a reason why NASCAR bought back all of their outstanding stock shares, and merged ISC into NASCAR. Now no outside entity has their fingers in the NASCAR pie. I think that the next 18 months could be 1 of 2 things. The emergence of a rival racing league, or a big nothing burger. It could get interesting!!

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2 hours ago, Josh42 said:

So I finished Denny's Podcast at lunch and he was asked if he thinks the 1/2 mile deal will come out and he said No he doesnt think it will happen.

Interesting tidbit of info he stated when Nascar bought the Fontana property from Penske for he said he thinks it was in the 600 million range that not only did they get Fontana but that also included Nazareth, Rockingham and a couple others i didnt catch.  I thought that Rockingham was owned by someone else so I dont know how much is actually true.

Nazareth, Rockingham, Fontana, Michigan, and Homestead. 

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You are correct Rails, NASCAR bought it from Penske, who had acquired it from the original ownership group. After the lawsuit against NASCAR, over the Texas Motor Speedway date, NASCAR sold it to SMI. SMI then moved the dates to their tracks. Andy Hillinburg bought it at auction from SMI. I had forgotten about Penske buying it, probably because Penske wasn't one to do a lot of publicity over things back then. Fontana was very public mainly because it was a new facility, you can't gloss over that, plus he needed to drum up support for it. Then there was the lawsuits over a Texas race date the was "promised". As I said above, "If memory serves me", and it didn't lol. At least I got the Hillinburg part right. I didn't think back far enough. My bad!

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2 hours ago, ron.brown11 said:

You are correct Rails, NASCAR bought it from Penske, who had acquired it from the original ownership group. After the lawsuit against NASCAR, over the Texas Motor Speedway date, NASCAR sold it to SMI. SMI then moved the dates to their tracks. Andy Hillinburg bought it at auction from SMI. I had forgotten about Penske buying it, probably because Penske wasn't one to do a lot of publicity over things back then. Fontana was very public mainly because it was a new facility, you can't gloss over that, plus he needed to drum up support for it. Then there was the lawsuits over a Texas race date the was "promised". As I said above, "If memory serves me", and it didn't lol. At least I got the Hillinburg part right. I didn't think back far enough. My bad!

I didn’t really know if it was correct or not either, but I did listen to the deal that Josh mentioned from Denny. And those are the tracks he mentioned today. I also thought I heard Denny mention that NASCAR just sold 80% of the Fontana complex land for something slightly north of 500 million. But I would have to go back and listen again for the exact number. He did mention in the podcast that if they were to build a half mile track that he thought there was possibly a deal in place to lease back some of the ground they just sold to use for parking to hold an event. I guess time will tell. I think I saw something online today that there will be some sort of announce on California during the Phoenix weekend in a couple of weeks.

Reports are that they bought all 5 of those tracks from Penske for 600 million.

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Two different writers not related to NASCAR, said that Fontana sold approximately 430 acres for $920 to $945Mil, leaving them around 90 acres. It's all like play money for these people. Either way, I think that SoCal racing is probably dead there. I sure hope not though. The best I can tell, looks like SMI might have gotten he short stick on their sale/auction on the Rock. Hopefully they made it back with profits for those new race dates.

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I think Irwindale would be awesome with the central to LA location, but IIRC Formula Drift maxed that place out putting portable bleachers along the entirety of the inner bank, and in turn 4, was able to cram 15k folks in there with overflow parking down the 4 lane road that goes behind the bleachers down a few blocks.  It was way overpacked and getting in/out off the cloverleaf on the highway was completely blocked.  A Cup race would be awesome there in my opinion of they wanted the SRX platform, "We have this many seats, and it's going to be a great show in person or on TV", but idk if they'll do that. 

Urban Sprawl and SoCal have been mutually exclusive to tracks for a long time.  

One thing that hasn't been talked about much is Long Beach Grand Prix.  I've gone to that event several times, it's absolutely awesome, the track is set up for a long time, and I think an Indycar/NASCAR double header there will end up being one of those compromised things that happens that ends up being a marquis event.  It's where you want it for spectator draw, it's an incredible event already, and with the street course coming already, this isn't a far stretch.  I've heard murmurs of it, the city of Long Beach from what I hear is chomping at the bit fighting for it, I think once the ROI on rebuilding Auto Club versus selling the land and using LBGP is really evaluated, we will see that. 

On the West Coast, I do think that Evergreen, Kern, and Irwindale are worthy of an Xfinity/Truck weekend.   Kern goes to 17k max previously, even if you double that it's still pretty small.  Bakersfield is in Southern California by map, but it's really not a destination place with things to do like LA can be.  Irwindale being on the Burbank/West Covina/Pasadena side of town is actually a nice and fun place to go.  Long Beach is somewhere if you haven't been, it's awesome. I stayed there for an entire week in an airBNB and a bicycle for the Grand Prix in 2011 and it was one of the most fun weeks of my life.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out while we're all bench building a schedule for NASCAR though, haha.

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Mike, as much as I love Irwindale, they just don't have the room. The racing would be great though. NASCAR has said in the past that they need 40-50k seats to make any money. That part is doable for a truck or Xfinity race. Unfortunately that won't help a Cup date, where they want 75k or more.  

Kern is by far the best option for everything, but NASCAR doesn't look at Bakersfield as a place close enough to LA. Evergreen (the big track) would also have the room, but would have to install a lot of temp seats. But it rains there way too often. I don't think they'd do it for that reason alone. That is unless the real want to try out those rain tires on a very fast oval.

But if NASCAR don't mind half the field not finishing, then a street race will do. I just don't think that it would work for more than 1 race. Street races are worse than road course races. A street race fan will see the least amount of track area where they're standing. When half the field has crashed out. it can get pretty boring, waiting for the next car or two to get back to you. 

If NASCAR doesn't do the 1/2 track at Fontana, I get the feeling that NASCAR may be done in the LA area. What a shame..

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Speaking of the street course look up tickets for Chicago and just take a gander at the prices. Very ridiculous for only being able to see a little of the actual race. At least at COTA, Sears Point you can see multiple areas of the track where a street race you can be cut off only seeing your area due to buildings and other things.

Plus sounds like some of these drivers really dont want to even do the Chicago street race and really dont want anymore road courses.

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Road Courses are not very fun to watch at any venue.  They are made for television.  If you go, may as well make it a party there at the track.  Every once in a while, the cars come by.  Like every two minutes.  But they are a blast to watch on TV

Edited by 24nomo
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My brother and I attended the first weekend for NASCAR at COTA. I had been out to the track a couple of times prior, to look at where to try and get good seats. I settled on the tall grandstands at the top of turn 1, for having the best view of about 1/3 of the track. Restarts into turn 1 were exciting to say the least. However, waiting 2+ minutes to be able to see any cars again was frustrating. Friday & Sat were good for seeing what could be seen from that location. Sunday, not so much. Between the low ceiling & the rain/tire spray, we could only see about 150 yards. You've got it right 24nomo, road course races are made for tv if you really want to see a lot more of the racing.

Josh42, this isn't NASCAR's first attempt at a street race. The Southwest Tour ran 4 street course races in Washington state area, from 1986 to 1988. Over half the field failed to finish most of them. Some of the driver interviews after crashing out, or after the race weren't pretty. Most openly saying that they wouldn't do another street race. Destroyed a lot of equipment. I was surprised that they were able to have a halfway decent field of cars after the first race. But it was getting pretty thin by the third. I was surprised that they even tried the forth one. Having concrete walls around an oval can be hard on equipment. Having concrete barricades on street courses tend to have really bad impact angles, making them even worse. Two of the races were run in Tacoma, and the other 2 were in Spokane.

I just hope that nobody is killed in a drive by shooting, when they go to Chicago..

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I think they named turn one at COTA "BIG RED", after the Late Red McCombs.  He put up most of the money for that track.  In my opinion, that is the best place to watch the race from there.  Most Nascar road courses are great to watch on TV.  As far as the street races in a stock car, It would not be fun in person and probably just as bad on TV.  

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On 3/6/2023 at 9:23 AM, 24nomo said:

Road Courses are not very fun to watch at any venue.  They are made for television.  If you go, may as well make it a party there at the track.  Every once in a while, the cars come by.  Like every two minutes.  But they are a blast to watch on TV

 

 

I went to an F1 race a couple years ago at COTA with my daughter & son in law who lived in Austin at the time. We were guests of some friends who provided everything so that made it very attractive for me to make the drive. They had multiple RV spots 1 just for cook tent, were constantly making and offering food, knew all the people up and down RV row (including the Tito's guys.....) and seats in one of the grandstands I don't recall which. We also made our way to the courtesy "tent" between turn 18-19 and watched from there for a while. It was very hard to keep up with the race unless I was watching the jumbo-trons. I did enjoy my day there but have not returned.

At the end of the day my daughter who grew up going to HMP summed it up exactly the same way as you 24nomo. "This was just a big party and every now and then some really fast cars went by."

Went to Indy type car race (CART/IRL?) in downtown Houston....ONCE. No way to follow the action.  

 

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Yeah, I will add that street race to my list of NASCAR races I won't watch. I can still remember bits of the Budweiser 200 race from WA state. I can't remember if it was on ESPN or TNN, but it sure was hard to watch. I'd be willing to bet that over half of the laps were under yellow. Reminds me of the Clash. I half heartedly asked my brother if he wanted to fly in for the COTA weekend in 2022. He said "I don't think so". Said that doing another road course wasn't something he wanted to do again. He was pretty happy when I said the same thing. We both agreed that the Lamborghini race was the best of the weekend at COTA in 2021. The truck and Xfinity races were decent, as was the weather for them. There was a little rain for the trucks, with none for the Xfinity race. Now we're looking at putting something together to do a weekend at Phoenix.

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1 hour ago, ron.brown11 said:

Yeah, I will add that street race to my list of NASCAR races I won't watch. I can still remember bits of the Budweiser 200 race from WA state. I can't remember if it was on ESPN or TNN, but it sure was hard to watch. I'd be willing to bet that over half of the laps were under yellow. Reminds me of the Clash. I half heartedly asked my brother if he wanted to fly in for the COTA weekend in 2022. He said "I don't think so". Said that doing another road course wasn't something he wanted to do again. He was pretty happy when I said the same thing. We both agreed that the Lamborghini race was the best of the weekend at COTA in 2021. The truck and Xfinity races were decent, as was the weather for them. There was a little rain for the trucks, with none for the Xfinity race. Now we're looking at putting something together to do a weekend at Phoenix.

if u are going to build a road course in my books it must be set up where i can see the whole track  from any seat .. or i wont go . i go to see racing ..  the whole race not just what went by .. . and yes they have big screens tv.s   .well i have a big 55  in my room .. with drinks food snacks  ac  and my favorite  two rest rooms  ..recliner .and its cheaper to watch it here .. .. and i never ever have to put my shoes on .. as  for gota .ill never go there .even if its free .. 

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Just now, HiTech said:

if u are going to build a road course in my books it must be set up where i can see the whole track  from any seat .. or i wont go . i go to see racing ..  the whole race not just what went by .. . and yes they have big screens tv.s   .well i have a big 55  in my room .. with drinks food snacks  ac  and my favorite  two rest rooms  ..recliner .and its cheaper to watch it here .. .. and i never ever have to put my shoes on .. as  for gota .ill never go there .even if its free .. 

cota not gota . mike ..

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