Catchfence

The California 500 weekend raced through despite some rain near the end of the Cal 500 and the first “regular” weekend of the NASCAR season thus saw the start of the process of determining the sport’s muscle. With the weekend came jostling by several of the sport’s issues -

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The biggest issue turned out to be the strange press conference Gillian Zucker called in the middle of the 500 (mentioned here) to discuss the track’s consistently mediocre attendances and rumors that one of its dates will be switched to Kansas Speedway. Zucker is using the economy as her argument about poor attendances and also claiming increased interest from “our Hispanic fan base” and alleged growth in the youth market, yet none of this seems believable. There simply is no evidence of any statistically relevant popularity for the sport in the southern California demographic (it is a mistake being repeated by the NFL with the building of a new LA-area stadium and the prospective move of the Jacksonville Jaguars, all despite zero evidence of local desire for a team there) and the mistake made in the sport’s investiture into Ontario Motor Speedway has been repeated – the sport maintaining a strong presence in a market that really doesn’t want it. Combined with the dubious financing of the Ontario track, it wound up ruining it and ending its competitive life after 1980.

Zucker insists she will fight to keep two dates at Fontana; I doubt she’d need to bother, for the track likely to be dropped of at least one date is Martinsville. It is a short track, and as such is outdated and possessing limited seating capacity. It also has a recent history of struggling to sell out its Winston Cup races, an indication that demographic is drying up the way those around Darlington and Rockingham either got smaller or dried up altogether. Moreover it makes scheduling sense for Kansas to get the spring date presently owned by Martinsville as opposed to either of Fontana’s dates.

The racing was okay in spots at Fontana but Zucker’s desire to bank it up retains viability here.

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The California 500 showed that Hendrick Motorsports is still on top, RCR is much stronger now than it was in 2009, and everyone else is just along for the ride.

Despite the front row start for Ganassi-Earnhardt’s Chevys, it was Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick who controlled the race, even as the EGR cars and others such as Jeff Gordon fell back or fell out. Harvick’s bid for the win died when he whacked the wall out of Four after erasing a big gap, which made for the more interesting final laps the track has seen in awhile.

Yet for all of Hendrick’s continuing success, the pet project of making Dale Junior a winner blew up yet again, this time when he broke an axle out of a late pitstop. As with his runner-up in the 2009 Winston 500, momentum has not come about for him.

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And yet more coverage came to a rookie driver who started in the bottom 13 of the Busch/Nationwide 300-miler at Fontana and stayed there all race. The more Danica Patrick races, the more clueless she proves herself to be. Clueless rookies are not the exception in racing but Patrick has displayed a lack of grasp of fundamentals to a degree that is frankly surprising. She continues to get cut slack in the media and the Danica myth of bringing in more fans and more sponsorships to the sport is holding up despite all evidence to the contrary.

What is being displayed in stock cars is the reality of a soft-porn model who decided to become a racecar driver, who used the fact of her gender and her soft-porn displays to get where she is in racing, and who has received opportunities rare in racing yet does less with more on a consistent basis.

The sooner this farce ends and NASCAR is rid of Danica Patrick, the better.

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The bottom line is thus that Fontana proved to be just another unmemorable weekend. With Fontana’s wrap the series hits Vegas next week. If the form chart of this week holds up then the Brian France Redemption Tour will have hit some potholes worse than what was filled in at Daytona.