pishta
I know I'm right....
I was there from 10 till closing...that's a long day with $14 beer and $13 burritos! Heat matches were fun, they were only about 10 minutes long. lap times were about 15 seconds. The track was so small an announcer ran it the night before in under 60 seconds! you could not even blink in the first 5 laps as it was side by side racing and youd miss something. In order to win, you had to own the inside track. I think I saw 3 passes on the outside turns. I was pulling for #42 Ty Dillon after his car stalled in his first heat race. He came back in the losers bracket and used the car in front of his for brakes and spun 3 guys but ended up winning that round only to be DQ'd from the big dance for jumping a yellow restart. I saw that happen and was thinking "thats gonna hurt". The sound in that place sucks. We could not hear any of the announcers over the roar of the cars and the 3 jumbotrons were so far away that you could not use them for timing and scoring. There were numbers and names posted in the stands display but I never looked at them, afraid Id miss something. I supposed you heard it on TV or in the first 20 rows but that was it. 75 lap Concert was necessary as there were no pit stops for the main event I believe. Pitbull is an owner, so cool for him and NASCAR but I didnt see anyone there to see him or Ice Cube, an LA legend (for better or worse). 75% of the fans there had never been to a NASCAR event so maybe it was a wise marketing decision? Fontana is retooling as a 1/2 mile, selling a big portion of their property as they could not fill the stands. I think its gonna start after the Feb 24 race. My die hard NASCAR friends who drove us said this race was more exciting than the super speedway tracks and the bee to a few (Daytona, Talledega, Pocono, etc), just constant cars passing in front of you. I had to concentrate on the #41 car as it was my boys pick (Local driver out of OC) just watching him and the #4 Buschhhhh car battle it out. I was very surprised when the leading #8 car just died in turn 1. WTF? New for this year (?) transaxle broke....DOH! I liked it. Seats were NOT empty at 3PM (60,000?) when the main event was scheduled. "Empty seats" at noon is like saying a Laker game is "empty" during warm ups. Try finding NASCAR track attendence numbers....
