iNSIDE SCOOP: So What Now?

As the mobile motorsports rodeo called NASCAR rolls west toward L.A., the question we have to ask ourselves is…is it going to rain again?

It never rains in Southern California, the song says, but if NASCAR is in town, I don’t want to put a lot of money down on that.

While there is much tongue-in-cheek above, I think we’ve seen quite enough of Mother Nature piddling all over our party. 

The forecast looks good in that regard, but I would caution you to have a backup plan for delays. 

The racing is what will be hot, I’m thinking. The guys have new hot rods and they love to go fast, so what better place to do it than Auto Club Speedway, where the entry speeds into Turn 1 are above 200 miles per hour?

That said, there’s plenty of room to race at ACS, as there are probably five different grooves to pick from, depending on what your car is doing, and you spend a lot of time turning the wheel too.

There are some streaks on the line as well. Will Tony Stewart keep the momentum he earned at Bristol? Can Dale Earnhardt Jr. recapture the magic that led him to three straight top-two finishes to begin the season? He’s good at Michigan, and ACS is a virtual copy of MIS.

Big question for me is, will Toyota get its act together and into Victory Lane at what amounts to a home race for them? TRD is located in Torrance, which is pretty close—a lot closer than Detroit, for sure.

Kyle Busch runs well there, and so does Matt Kenseth. Denny Hamlin was a shade away from winning last year until he got into it with Joey Logano, and we all know how THAT turned out.

Speaking of Logano, he and teammate Brad Keselowski have been scalded-dog fast this year, and with Carl Edwards’ victory at Bristol, could Ford go on a winning streak like Chevrolet did? Horsepower counts at ACS, and the Fords have a bunch of it.

Now that the Unintended Illumination of Bristol has disappeared into the night, we can get ready for a full-on, wide-open, high-horse showdown on a racy, 2-mile oval, right?

While we’re talking about it, I’d like to see a Daytona-Phoenix-Las Vegas-California slate next year, with Bristol a week later. That might get the mountains out of the rain for a year. The schedule right now, Daytona to Phoenix to Las Vegas, works well even though the teams have to go back to North Carolina in between. Then you throw a home race (in all but name) in at Bristol, then it’s back to the West Coast.

Weather alone should dictate that the Bristol date be moved back, and NASCAR has said 2015 would be the year they would realign the schedule. Throw in a Chase race rotation (a good idea from here) and we might have a lot more to talk about come the end of the season.

For now, though, I’m just happy we’re at an unrestricted track with a lot of room to race.