Should Auto Club go back to 1 race?

[dalejrgamer]

If ACS goes to 1 Cup date, without any other major racing series coming in to replace the 2nd date, the track closes due to "unforeseen circumstances."

Remember the people who run ACS are complete morons.

I agree. Gilland Zucker can go to hell for all I care for not making the area actually care about NASCAR.

Hell, the only fix we have is Irwindale.

 

[BenCrazy424]

Bring back the rock, north wilks, and add a dinky track like old dominion (that would be fun to watch 43 cars fit on that track).

 

[dalejrgamer]

You know, I almost wished that Montreal should get a date this early.

If NASCAR still wants to connect with the Pacific fans, give Laguna Seca a date. Barring the fact that Madza owns the track last I checked (or at least has the naming rights to it).

Hell, I'd be satisfied if they race at Long Beach. I'll be amused to see a 20-car pileup at the Shoreline Hairpin.

 

[hansonator69]

You want to sell tickets? Send them to Laguna Seca.... a guy can dream.

i would cry from happiness if i saw NASCAR racing at Laguna

 

[dw17fan]

I blame the weather for part of the decline. Their has been a good chance for rain for every race in Feb. I wonder if they had a race in April or early May what the atttendance would be. Thats when they had the race when the track opened. If they lose a race, I would prefer any where that isn't a 1.5 mile track.

 

[MattSRD28]

Yeah well, the May date went to Richmond because...wait for it...it used to rain a lot in VA back when Richmond was the 3rd race of the year.

RaceHub today mentioned that Atlanta might possibly flop with Infineon to create a huge west coast swing because the weather in Atlanta ain't all that great. Has anyone checked what the weather in the NorCal area is this time of year? It's freezing! It also rains there too because the SoCal rainy season gets worse the farther north you go until you're in Seattle where the sun almost never shines for 6 straight months.

I think we just need to accept that the weather in winter sucks. Either shorten the schedule, or just deal with the bloody rain.

 

[Fisha695]

I think ACS should go to one race....if anyone thinks 72,000 attended the NSCS race this weekend....well...they should work for ACS.

I would assume NASCAR does the numbers the same way at every track, and I know for a fact that the way they do it at Pocono (and used to at Nazareth) is by ticket-stubs. 72k between the stands and the infield isn't bad at all, hell 50k isn't bad either.

Think about it this way the average stadium in the US/Canada holds around 55,000.. BUT they rarely sell out with the exception of play-off games, rivalry games, and maybe one or twice a month. The Superbowl, the biggest pro-sports event in North America only had 74,000 people at it (out of 76k possible) and the Grey Cup for 2009 (biggest annual pro event in Canada) only had 46,000 (out of 60k possible). Heck Daytona 500 wasn't full, Indy 500 (2009) wasn't full either. Sports events rarely have legit sell-outs, and even a sell-out doesn't mean all those people attend.

The biggest problem with Cali (and most tracks) is that they seem to think they'll sell those seats, when in fact they won't. If they would be smart they would take a page out of the books of tracks like Dover and M'ville, by that I mean put a tarp over those seats with advertising on it. If those seats would be needed they could move the tarp, but if not then instead of looking like empty seats it looks like the regular advertisements around the track.

I would never see Pocono losing a date...the family that runs Pocono does a great job, and would right flip out if a date was gone. And factor in that in the PA/OH/MD area, that is the race, heck some come from Ontario to see the races there, rather than go to Watkins Glen.

Exactly, Pocono will always have two dates for a few reasons.
1 - The Mattioli and the France family are very very very close dating back to the early days of NASCAR.
2 - It requires skill to race at and to setup the car for.
3 - It's close to a lot of places, such as... 80mi to NYC, 80mi to Philly, 270mi to Toronto, 135mi to Baltimore, 250mi to Boston, 300mi to Ottawa, 325mi to Montreal, 265mi to Richmond, 240mi to Pittsburgh, etc. Studies show most NASCAR fans are willing to travel about 300 miles to race, well there are a heck of a lot of people in that (or just outside of that) 300mi range.


If anything the track needs some money to be put into it to get it completely repaved (Oval & roadcourses) and it needs the safety upgrades done to it to get the IRL back there (oval or road) as well as possibly an ALMS or Grand-Am race, along with AMA bikes, or we can hope F1. Many of the local people here aren't in favor of it, but I'm actually in favor of one of the Cup races at Pocono being switched from the Oval to one of the road course configurations.

Critics are always saying "Nobody likes Pocono", well a lot of people do, hell Germany liked it so much that they built the EuroSpeedway Lausitz to be almost an exact clone (track wise) of Pocono.

lol Cup car + Corkscrew = Disaster.

Ehh not so much as you would think. There is a lot of NASCAR style cars that test there, and the west series ran their a few years back IIRC.

But I'd love to see Rockingham get a race again :notworthy:

1) Fix Rockingham up and give it a date

Here is a question I've had for a while. Why would Rockingham Want a Cup race? Seriously think about it... You know how much money they would lose on a Cup race......? I'll give ya a hint it's not just what it'd cost to put on the race, it's also the millions of dollars they would not get when the track would become off-limits to testing again.

Rockingham is a business, and well the smart business decision is to make money testing instead of not making money racing.

I agree. Gilland Zucker can go to hell for all I care for not making the area actually care about NASCAR.

How is it Zuckers fault that the people don't care? If anything it's the fault of the NASCAR fans that the non-fans don't care. As a NASCAR fan it's your job to turn your friends/co-works into NASCAR fans, it's not Zuckers.

 

[PepsiRacer4]

See I'd love to say add Mid-Ohio because I live right near it (like literally it's loud as hell). But it won't happen

 

[dalejrgamer]

How is it Zuckers fault that the people don't care? If anything it's the fault of the NASCAR fans that the non-fans don't care. As a NASCAR fan it's your job to turn your friends/co-works into NASCAR fans, it's not Zuckers.

Because Zucker and her cronies are a bunch of morons. And I tried that strategy, it never works.

 

[denyerfan]

ORP ORP ORP ORP!!!!

I don't remember a less than awesome ORP race.
And the fans pack every cm.

Just replace the second cali date.
Imagine ORP, cup, chase.
Recipe for disaster/greatness.

 

[Darrell Pace]

Put a race back to Rockingham or North Wilkesboro

 

[evan07]

Put a race back to Rockingham or North Wilkesboro

I would love to see a at North Wilksboro just think about how awesome it would be having stands all the way around it i think it could have potiental if put in the right hands to be as big as Bristol.

But NASCAR is starting to listen to the fans so I think there might be more short tracks in the future.

 

[Reaper]

I got a really great idea to keep the schedule for all to be fair.....take all the tracks and one at a time pick them out of a box and go down the whole schedule till u fill it fully up and do it agian every year.....

 

[instantCLASSIC]

1) Fix Rockingham up and give it a date

Rockingham is fixed up. Andy Hillenburg repaved it when he bought it. Hence the ARCA race there each year.

 

[Thunder98]

Two Words: Hell Yeah

Replace the Labor Day weekend race with Darlington like it used to be

 

[dalejrgamer]

ORP ORP ORP ORP!!!!

I don't remember a less than awesome ORP race.
And the fans pack every cm.

Just replace the second cali date.
Imagine ORP, cup, chase.
Recipe for disaster/greatness.

Oh yeah, I forgot about IRP.

Just expand the seating to about 100,000 and then we're talking.

 

[DannyM]

Rockingham is fixed up. Andy Hillenburg repaved it when he bought it. Hence the ARCA race there each year.

He didn't repave it, he sealed the track. Maybe revamp the stands and garage, etc.

 

[Bucket]

NHIS...Man that place has given me the chills ever since that one week in 2000...RIP Adam and Kenny.

Anyway, I think that Kentucky should get a Cup date, and Pocono will never lose a date mainly because the tickets there are a great deal.

 

[MattSRD28]

Pocono will never lose a date mainly because the tickets there are a great deal.

See, if I had to choose one thing as ACS' biggest problem, it's the fact that every single seat in that grandstand is beyond a rip-off. Those great deals that other tracks offer simply do not exist at Auto Club Speedway. I'm sure there are thousands of fans that would love to pay what an Atlanta, Pocono, or even Charlotte offers for their less-than-perfect seats, but can't because those affordable prices simply are not offered.

I'm sure there are thousands more fans that would LOVE to pay even $100 for the GOOD seats near the top of the grandstands at either end (you know, the ones you saw totally empty last weekend), but CAN'T because the morons at Auto Club Speedway REQUIRE BOTH COMPLETE RACE WEEKENDS be purchased in order to have access to those seats. Think you get a discount for buying up 2 complete race weekends worth of racing? Think again! Those seats cost $330 each. A family of four has to pay $1,320!!!! just to see a Cup race at Auto Club Speedway from good seats!!! THAT'S INSANE! You're paying big bucks for everything from qualifying on Friday to the race on Sunday, and that's just to be able to sit in the cold metal grandstand. We haven't even mentioned the cost of things like souvenirs and food yet.

Oh, did I mention that ACS killed its convenient Metrolink (train) service to the Speedway this year because not enough people bought $20-35 tickets for it?

THIS TRACK CHARGES INSANE PRICES FOR EVERYTHING, AND DOESN'T CARE ABOUT ANY RECESSION!!!

If anyone saw the race last weekend, you saw that it's not really "boring" racing keeping people away from ACS. The racing is just fine. It's the fact that my 4 year old niece could run this track better than Gillian Zucker is running it. Why does Zucker get blamed? Because she's the bloody track president. The buck stops at her. If something improves, she also gets the credit, although at this point it'll be tough to give any credit because she's the one who has continued the horrific policies that this track has suffered from since day 1 of its existence. She's the President. She has all the power, and all the responsibility

Zucker is also the one who'd undoubtedly make the choice to CLOSE the track completely rather than just run one major weekend's worth of racing. From day 1 California/Auto Club Speedway has had at least 2 major weekend's worth of racing. It began as 1 Cup weekend in June and 1 CART weekend in late summer. It morphed into 1 Cup weekend in May and 1 IRL weekend. Later on it became simply 2 Cup weekends worth of racing. The ticket pricing & format has never changed, and attendance has suffered greatly for it. If Zucker's reaction to the lack of train ticket sales is any indication, I seriously fear for the track's future should 1 Cup weekend date be lost with no replacement.

So this is what ACS' big problem is, and always has been. You want the good seats? Then you must buy EVERYTHING! (Simply good seats, not PSL's.) The only reason why I've EVER been to a CART/IRL/IndyCar race was because we were forced to buy tickets for that race in the late 90s in order to have good seats for the one Cup race a year. It was pathetic. Once the price got too high, we simply stopped going to the track. We make over $100,000 a year and we could not afford going to this track! Thousands, and thousands of other fans have done the same. The result is the state of the grandstands you saw last weekend. It doesn't matter that most Nascar fans don't care about other types of racing. It doesn't matter that California is in seriously financial trouble, and the folks here are suffering under 18% unemployment along with all the other numerous joys of this recession. Zucker and her team are just in a complete state of denial, and it is KILLING the track. What is the end result of a terminal disease that doesn't get treated,or gets treated too late? This is why I fear for the future of Auto Club Speedway - a track that, like its predecessors Ontario & Riverside, doesn't deserve to die, but will if nothing changes.

One group of people that you can't blame are the fans. We love our Nascar here. We waited years for it come back after Riverside closed. We drove to Phoenix in '94, '95, and '96 before California opened in 1997. But when the track pulls shenanigans like this, what are we to do? Going to a Nascar race, as much as we love Nascar, is a luxury. When the economy sucks and our state government is worse, we have to cut more luxuries than anyone else in other parts of the USA do. Then add the fact that this track seems content with charging insane prices for everything, we just in large part cannot afford to show the at-the-track support that we'd like to. Read this post, and the others that I've posted about Auto Club Speedway's numerous examples of how not to run a race track, and tell me the fans are to blame. We don't want to see our Nascar leave, but we have no say in the matter. When Gillian Zucker prices tickets at a level that we CAN pay, then we'll show you how we are some of the most passionate & dedicated Nascar fans anywhere in this country.

 

[shane9]

I think they should do away with cali completly its basically michigan in a diffrent state... 2 dates to darlington... 1 to phoenix like it used to be. Get rid of kansas and fill in from there... and i'd love to see them go back to north wilkes.... and go back to the rock for gods sake... and i like pocono so i'm leaving 2 for them.

lol that was a big sentance... had to take a deep breath =p