LOS ANGELES (AP) — NASCAR’s top stars have seen the Los Angeles Coliseum on television and they know what it looks like as a football stadium.
But as a racetrack? This they had to see right away, up close as soon as they arrived in Los Angeles.
Much of the NASCAR industry descended on the Coliseum shortly after touching down to get a sneak peek of this bold new venue. NASCAR has taken its biggest gamble yet by moving its preseason exhibition race inside the Coliseum, renovated at a cost of more than $1 million into a temporary quarter-mile asphalt track for a Sunday night sprint shootout.
As the Fox Sports team attempted to explain why the Coliseum is such a progressive step for the sport, a sound check of the audio system drowned out their excitement. Pumped through the speakers was a collection of hits by Ice Cube, the headliner of a halftime act worked in to the Busch Light Clash’s run of show.
“What’s it going to take for everybody to consider this event a success?” asked Tony Stewart, the NASCAR Hall of Famer who will join the Fox Sports booth this weekend. “I think the key word is event. This is not just a race. This is an event at a very special place, a very special venue.
“(People) love to hear and feel like they were entertained. That’s what’s going to make it a success. Doesn’t have to be 40 passes for the lead. It doesn’t have to be two-wide racing, three-wide racing. If people leave here and they feel good about this event, that is going to make this event a success.”
The track doesn’t officially open until Friday for a morning practice session followed by early evening qualifying. The Clash is Sunday night but is preceded by heat races that will determine which 23 drivers advance to the main event. The heat races will eliminate 13 drivers from advancing into the finale; only reigning Cup champion Kyle Larson is locked into the field.
The Clash is 150 laps, caution laps won’t count, Pitbull has a pre-race a show, a DJ will be on hand for breaks and Ice Cube has a full stage set for his halftime show.
So the drivers showed up Thursday to get a first look at the smallest track most will have ever raced on. At a quarter mile, the transformed Coliseum is almost half the size of Bristol or Martinsville, which both measure at just over a half-mile and NASCAR’s smallest venues on the Cup schedule.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti also dropped by to see the show that precedes next week’s Super Bowl. When the idea of a race at the Coliseum was first broached, Garcetti couldn’t grasp the idea.
“I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Where? Like, outside the Coliseum?’” Garcetti told The Associated Press after touring the iconic stadium. “My first thought — it was going to be around the Coliseum. Now when you see it, you realize they pulled off a miracle.”
The track was built over USC’s football field, and Coliseum general manager Joe Furin conceded the grass that’s been covered by asphalt is now dead. But Furin also noted that when NASCAR broke ground on the track in December, it happened to fall on the 100th anniversary of the groundbreaking for the Coliseum.
“The NASCAR event is completely out of the box,” said Furin, “but it is absolutely a worthy event.”
