NASCAR race at Fontana: One last run at Auto Club’s 2-mile track, how to watch, more

Bubba Wallace called it “a shame.”

Ryan Blaney wishes “they’d just leave it alone.”

Alex Bowman, in response to a question about this year being the final race on Auto Club Speedway’s two-mile oval, wondered out loud if the racetrack’s reconfiguration was actually going to happen this time.

“They keep saying they’re going to reconfigure it, and that every year is the last year going there,” Bowman, who won at Auto Club Speedway in 2020, told reporters last week. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

He added: “Our intermediate racing is the best one that we have (in the Next Gen car) right now, so why take one away?”

NASCAR announced in September that the Cup race on Sunday (3:30 p.m., FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) will be the final one on Auto Club Speedway’s two-mile oval. The racetrack will thereafter be reconfigured into a half-mile short track — ending a 25-year era of some of the best racing in NASCAR and IndyCar at the Fontana venue.

This marks the latest reconfiguration of a racetrack on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule. Among the other tracks that have been changed in recent years: Atlanta Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway.

“That place is one of the (most fun), coolest racetracks we go to,” Blaney said. “Can also say the same thing about Atlanta. Can also say the same thing about Chicago and Texas. They’ve evolved. They’ve changed. And so I hate to see that place go. I’m sure the half-mile will be fun. It’ll be different. But that place is so unique, and the drivers have so much fun there, and it puts on great racing. Just a shame that something like that is going to have its last year.”

Said Wallace: “It’s one of the best circuits. I wish we could just pick it up and move it to my backyard, that would be great. ... Move it to a place where we can go and race there weekly. It’s that type of racetrack. It’s so fun. It’s wore out, bumpy, provides always great racing, I feel like. You’re always slipping and sliding. It’s just a bigger Homestead.”

Drivers have said that this being the final race of its kind at the Fontana, California, racetrack only makes winning there a bigger deal on Sunday.

One driver who wouldn’t need that added incentive? Kevin Harvick. The Bakersfield, Calif., native’s final race at his home track will be Sunday after the all-time great announced his retirement in January. He will start in P10.

This racetrack has produced 18 different race winners in its 25 years of Cup racing. Kurt Busch, who retired at the end of last season, leads the series all-time in poles with four — and Jimmie Johnson, now part-owner of Legacy Motor Club, leads the series in wins with six.

Six of the 18 winners are active this weekend. Kyle Busch has notched four wins at Auto Club, and Bowman, Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski have all won one.

Inclement weather hit the southern part of California pretty hard this weekend, but Fontana is supposed to be pretty clear Sunday afternoon. A quick look at the forecast as of Saturday: high of 48, low of 41, 24% chance of rain.

Saturday’s qualifying got rained out, which meant that the race’s starting lineup was set by metric — a qualifying formula introduced in 2020 that uses the driver’s finish in the most recent race and the driver’s fastest lap in the most recent race (among other factors) to set the order.

Christopher Bell will start on the pole on Sunday. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., last week’s Daytona 500 winner, will start next to him. Joey Logano and Bowman will start P3 and P4, respectively — and last year’s Auto Club winner, Kyle Larson, will start 15th.

How to watch Auto Club 400

• Race: Pala Casino 400
• Place: Auto Club Speedway
• Date: Sunday, Feb. 26
• Time: 3:30 p.m. ET
• Purse: $8,484,302
• TV: FOX, 2:30 p.m. ET
• Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
• Distance: 400 miles (200 laps)
• Stages: Stage 1 (Lap 65), Stage 2 (Lap 130), Stage 3 (Lap 200)

Starting lineup for NASCAR Cup race

This story was originally published February 26, 2023 at 5:00 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Charlotte Observer

Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways in which sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the Pro Football Writers Association, the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) group. He’s earned six APSE Top 10 distinctions for his coverage on a variety of topics, from billion-dollar stadium renovations to the small moments of triumph that helped a Panthers kicker defy the steepest odds in sports. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (S.C.) from 2019-22. Support my work with a digital subscription