NASCAR visits the two-mile version of the Auto Club Speedway for the last time this weekend. Let’s bid farewell by recalling five races that illustrate the track’s transformation from boring to popular.
1997: The first race
California Speedway, as the track was originally called, was one of four tracks that debuted in the late 1990s. Unlike the new Texas, Las Vegas and Homestead tracks, the D-shaped California track was two miles long and had a 14-degree bank at the corners.
The NASCAR Cup Series had not raced in Southern California since Riverside International Raceway closed in 1988. By the race weekend, Californian Jeff Gordon had already crossed the checkered flag six times in 14 races.
The opening race featured long green flag runs (45.6 laps average) and 21 lead changes. Gordon led 113 of 250 laps, beating eventual second and third place finishers Dale Jarrett and Terry Labonte.
The 250-lap (500-mile) race took three hours and 13 minutes – just 10 minutes longer than the 2022 400-mile race.
2004: Gordon’s victory highlights a problem
Brand new tracks are exciting because they’re new, but they rarely lend themselves to great racing. New asphalt offers restricted ideal lines and makes overtaking more difficult. When a driver took the lead at California Speedway, he usually held it for a while.
In six of the previous seven races, a driver led 100 or more of 250 laps. The exception was in 2001 when Rusty Wallace only led 95 laps.
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In 2004, Gordon led 81 laps en route to victory. But like Wallace three years earlier, he led the last 47 laps. This was the fourth of eight races without a lead change in the final 40 laps.
The closest thing to a late pass to the lead was Gordon’s first win on the track. He led the last 11 laps.
But Gordon didn’t just win the race. His winning margin of 12.87 seconds is the widest in the history of the circuit’s Cup Series.
2011: The first last lap pass to win
Aging asphalt at what is now Auto Club Speedway helped the race. Overtakes took place closer to the end of the race: two laps before the checkered flag in 2006, more often 10-25 laps.
But attendance is declining and heat issues have plagued the races. In 2010, the race was shortened from 500 miles to 400 miles. In 2011, Auto Club Speedway returned to one race per year.
Another Californian, Kevin Harvick, won the only race of 2011 with a final pass from Kyle Busch. Harvick led one lap of the race. Since stage races had not yet been invented, one lap counted.
Three of the next four races also featured last lap passes, as shown in the chart below.
2018: Martin Truex Jr. finds the perfect ruleset—for him
Profit margins have narrowed over the years, as shown in the chart below. Aside from races that ended in caution, six out of seven races between 2010 and 2017 had a lead of less than a second.
The three empty spots are races that ended under caution.
NASCAR changed the rule packs when looking for the best way to design the next-generation car. In 2018, defending Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. ran for a team that would close at the end of the year. The new package suited Truex, who won pole and both stages. He led 125 of the 200 laps of the race and won the race by 11.685 seconds, the second largest margin at the track.
2022: The first race of the next generation
The first next-gen race at Auto Club Speedway was the third next-gen race ever. The numbers show it.
The 2022 race was the most bookings of 2008 with 12. But the 2022 field squeezed the same number of bookings at 400 miles as the 2008 field at 500 miles. This race also set the record for most caution laps: 59 out of 400, or 14.75% of the race.
In previous years maybe 20 to 25 riders rotated over the season. However, that one race involved five spins. Chase Elliott, who spun four times throughout 2022, spun twice in the race. (Elliott had a little help on the second spin). Between practice and the race, Ross Chastain crashed two cars. Kyle Larson won the race.
But the Auto Club Speedway had improved so much that most drivers were against changing the track. NASCAR’s recent sale of much of the land surrounding the speedway leaves NASCAR racing in Southern California uncertain.
The teams have an extra year of experience in the next-generation car. This weekend’s race should show us whether the new car is difficult to drive on this type of track or whether the drivers just needed a little time to learn the new vehicle. This, in turn, could have a huge impact on autoparity.
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