Stock Car Race Causes Few Problems : Sports: Three-day NASCAR event is barely noticed by museum-goers at Exposition Park, unlike last year.

As thousands of motor sports fans watched stock cars roar through a series of hairpin turns on a special racetrack on one side of Exposition Park on Monday, life went on quietly on the park’s other side.

Cris Dupont crouched in the celebrated Rose Garden, photographing peach-colored blooms.

“Race? I don’t know anything about a race,” said the documentary videographer. He was gathering potential stock footage while waiting his turn to get into a special butterfly exhibit at the adjacent Los Angeles County Natural History Museum.

As far as Dupont was concerned, the collective vroom of the third annual Ford Los Angeles Street Race--only several hundred yards away--might as well have been across town.

The sound was blocked by the walls of yet another of the Central Los Angeles park’s facilities, the California Science Center.

Crowds there reported they had no trouble getting access to the museum--a significant improvement over last year’s race day.

Then, the course was different. It encircled a much greater portion of the sprawling park and prompted complaints from museum-goers that they had to buy tickets to the race just to get access to museums.

This year, with a redesigned racecourse occupying only the southern portion of the park and a section of Figueroa Street, Oscar Gonzalez, floor manager at the science center, said race day turned out to be just “a regular day.”

Los Angeles being Los Angeles--with more events going on than anyone can reasonably keep track of--Donelle Murakami had not realized that an auto race might be in her way, when she set out Monday from Hacienda Heights to visit the science museum with her husband, three children and the children’s grandmother.

Jackie Valle, visiting with her husband and two children from Pico Rivera, reported, “No trouble. Not at all.”

That seemed to be the theme for thousands of race-goers, drawn to the final, climactic day of the three-day event, featuring races sanctioned by NASCAR.

Just how many people attended the races was unclear. Promoters had estimated that 100,000 people would come over three days. But they declined to provide a box office figure Monday afternoon and a reporter who walked the perimeter at that time estimated that 10,000--or at most, 20,000--people lined the concrete-barricaded course down park streets where the usual speed limit is just over a crawl.

There certainly were fewer attendees than those who jam Exposition Park’s Coliseum for a big USC football game or for a soccer match featuring Central American national teams. The crowds Monday were easier to manage because race-goers, unlike those attending games, arrived at different times throughout the day.

“Last year was better in attendance, I believe,” said Josue Alvarado, who was serving burritos and tacos at a booth in the race’s infield. “There were either more people or they were more hungry.”

The atmosphere at the race seemed more street fair than serious sporting event. In addition to food vendors, booths set up in the infield offered free massages, free Starbucks coffee coolers, even free Foster Farms chicken bits.

“It’s pretty mellow right now,” said Los Angeles Police Officer Alex Burton at midafternoon. He was able to take a couple of minutes off from his foot patrol to dribble a basketball with a delighted child.