Auto Club Speedway looking for U-turn in 2012
2011/12/30
Auto Club Speedway — formerly known as California Speedway — used to pack them in by the tens of thousands every Labor Day weekend as NASCAR buzzed through Southern California.
Then the Great Recession hit.
The Fontana speedway has been racked by dwindling attendance and even lost its fall NASCAR race, forcing it to look to other avenues to stay open.
But open it is, much to the delight of David Talley, spokesman for the track.
“This track is in use more than 300 days a year,” Talley said. “We’ve got stock car driving schools, open wheel driving schools, motorcycle schools. We’ve got the dragway. We’ve got commercials shooting here, movies and TV shows shooting here. We’re open for business 365 days out of the year.”
He said he definitely understands the drop in attendance as the Inland Empire area of Southern California has double-digit unemployment and has been hit especially hard by the recession.
“You can look at the grandstands and see how it has affected this place, including the entire community,” Talley said. “The Inland Empire at one point led the nation in foreclosures. You can’t expect someone to buy a race ticket when they can’t make the mortgage on their house.
“You look back at the day when we were packing the place and this was the place to be, and I look forward to the day when it’s packed again.”
THOSE DAYS MIGHT BE coming very soon.
NASCAR returns to Fontana the weekend of March 23-25, 2012, and the Izod IndyCar series will be in town on Sept. 14-15.
Much excitement is building over the IndyCar event, which is currently scheduled to conclude the IndyCar Series season.
And to help the fans afford to come to the speedway, there are all kinds of promotions, Talley said.
“We’ve done all kinds of things from lowering prices to $35, which includes everything in the FanZone that includes kids’ stuff,” he said. “We’ve added escalators and shaded structures. The fact is, we’re more fun and family friendly. We all know that NASCAR is a family sport.”
With losing the fall NASCAR race, the speedway won’t have any trouble rebounding in the spring, Talley said.
“Our anticipation is we thought we have to wait a year to see what the repercussion was of losing a race,” Talley said. “But we saw the large attendance the last race (in March of 2011) — it was our largest crowd since 2006.”
In fact, NASCAR put that attendance at a whopping 88,000 for that event. That really helps when Talley battles the naysayers about racing in the Southern California area.
“People say this isn’t a motor sports market, but I think our last race proved a lot of people wrong,” Talley said. “Just going by our renewal rates, we’re over last year. I have no doubt that we’ll have a nice crowd for our NASCAR race and will have a great crowd for our IndyCar race.”
If Talley’s estimates — and optimism — are true, the Auto Club Speedway is in for a terrific 2012.
Shel Segal is president of Arcadia, Calif.-based Segal Communications and a columnist with the Fontana (Calif.) Herald News. He can be reached at ssegal@segalcomm.net.
