FONTANA ALUMINUM TO SHINE

The Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s Bullring short-track has enough seats to hold this Saturday night’s NASCAR Nationwide race being held in Fontana, Calif., at the track formerly called California Speedway.

There could even be aluminum benches to spare in the 5,000-seat grandstand at LVMS.

And the crowd for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race in Southern California likely will be another embarrassment for the sport and the racing community.

The 60,000 or so who attend will have plenty of room to spread out.

NASCAR is not the first choice for nearly everyone living that close to a beach to spend part of a Labor Day weekend. Washing the car or mowing the lawn seems better options. That’s why next year’s second annual race near L.A. will be in October when it will do better but not good enough.

But the California speedway — note small “s” because the 2-mile oval is now called Auto Club Speedway — lacks creativity in how best to get sports fans to buy tickets.

The speedway near LaLa land could learn from Richmond International Raceway. Each is owned by the France family’s International Speedway Corp. so you’d think they’d help each other out.

The Carl Edwards-Kyle Busch incident on Saturday night at Bristol has been the talk of NASCAR this week. It’s a rivalry, baby.

Richmond featured the white hat vs. black hat match in a release sent out Tuesday and the track’s race isn’t until Sept. 6.

No press releases yet about Edwards-Busch — first and second in points — from California.

Richmond followed up Wednesday with another release offering Edwards and Busch to ease the tension by competing in demolition derby before its race. Banging would be permitted, as the event would not be run under the auspices of NASCAR, which placed both on probation this week.

The Fontana track takes a different approach to marketing and luring race fans.

First, it built a Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant near the grandstand. Unfortunately, Wolfgang’s Apex eatery does not have fried turkey legs or fried Twinkies on the menu.

The track about 60 miles east of Hollywood is, however, very stoked in a release last week about going for a Guinness World Record for largest bingo game on Sunday when $20,000 in prizes will be offered. Based on past race crowds there, the odds look pretty good.

The record is 53,000 so it’s not a sure thing like it would be at nearly every other Cup track.

That could be a lofty goal considering poor turnout for previous Cup races at the track.

JOEY BOY
Joey Logano, named this week to replace Tony Stewart next year in the No. 20 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing, will compete in seven Cup races this year.

The 18-year-old, who already has won in the Nationwide series as a rookie, will make his debut Sept. 6 at Richmond and at Atlanta for Gibbs. His other five starts will be in the Hall of Fame Racing’s No. 96.