There’s a Reason for the Traffic

In order, driver Bill Elliott thanks, “God, the UAW and Valvoline.” He had just finished fourth in the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway in Fontana. You have to love an event where God edges out the UAW, which edges out Valvoline, and where finishing fourth is worth thanking anybody.

How can you not love a sport where somebody is driving the “Kellogg’s/Got Milk? Chevrolet?” Terry Labonte must have a house full of breakfast food. Jeff Green drove the America Online Chevrolet. He finished 26th. Must not have upgraded to the broadband service AOL so constantly promotes.

Jerry Nadeau’s U.S. Army Pontiac (14th) beat Todd Bodine’s National Guard Ford (25th). Army kicks butt again.

It was a day of sun, beer, tank tops. It was a day of fun. That’s what a rookie with just a touch of acne still on his chin was having. The words tumbled from his mouth, three abreast it seemed, because, as he said many times, “The racing was so much fun.” The racing, Jamie McMurray said, was fun “because I wasn’t leading the whole way. This was better.”

How can you not love a sport where the kid who finishes fifth says fifth is fun because running first all day would have been boring?

When the first NASCAR race was held at California Speedway six years ago, Vincent Montano, a security consultant from Montclair, was given a ticket.

So he came, a casual fan of stock car racing with some basic knowledge and a lot of curiosity. Then the engines revved, the smell of exhaust filled the air, 140,000 people stood and hollered at once, the hairs on his arms stood straight, goose bumps covered his skin.

“It had taken me three hours to get here,” Montano said Sunday, “and the traffic was so bad I thought about turning around and going home.”

Montano didn’t go home, though. He found a shortcut. He sneaked in behind a caravan of official vehicles. He drafted the police escort. His heart rate didn’t return to normal for a week, and Montano went out and bought a $55,000 motor home. He hasn’t missed a NASCAR race since at the track.

If he had been offered two court-level seats to Sunday’s Laker game, Montano said, he would have refused them. Montano understands why traffic is backed up on Interstate 10 and 1-15 at 6 a.m. for the 11:30 a.m. start, why 125,000 people spend two hours traveling four miles from the interstate to the parking lots.

It is the goose bumps, Montano said. It is the chance to stand up against a fence and have your athletic hero stop and sign an autograph instead of walking past you, the paying fan, without a sideways glance.

It is the moment when cars are three abreast, traveling nearly 200 mph, when every one of the 92,000 fans in the seats and the fans in the infield are climbing on each other’s shoulders to see, for just a second, these cars race by with a whoosh, leaving behind snapshot impressions because nobody in the infield actually sees these cars for more than a second.

Unless you’re with the Montano party.

Montano was beaming Sunday. He had been nominated for, and then won, the honorary title of “Mayor of the Infield.” Montano was wearing a large medallion that said “Mayor of the Infield.” Along with the motor home, Montano had set up a 50-inch television (with a satellite dish), a three-seat swing and an outdoor kitchen.

With Montano was his chef, Johnny Leinneweber from Costa Mesa. It was Leinneweber’s wife, Janice, who had nominated Montano for mayor. Montano said he won on the basis of two things -- that he had once brought his 3-week-old daughter Julia (she’s 4 now) and his gallant wife, Lydia -- to the race. “Our doctor gave us the OK,” Montano said. And, because Leinneweber makes a killer chorizo burrito. He makes trays and trays of them, well into the hundreds, for anybody who stops by.

As a perk of his “office,” Montano had been invited to sit in on the driver’s prerace meeting. He stood, he said, “just inches away from my hero.” That would be Dale Earnhardt Jr. In a small bag, Montano had packed an Earnhardt shirt. Montano’s heart wanted him to ask Earnhardt to sign the jersey for Montano’s 13-year-old son, Justin. Montano’s head told him the time and place was inappropriate. “But, man, I wish I’d had the nerve,” Montano said sadly. “If Dale wins, I’m going to kill myself.”

Dale didn’t win. Montano can live.

Kurt Busch won. Busch, 24, became the first two-time winner on the circuit this year. He’s already called “Young Gun” because of his precocious rise. His team owner, Jack Roush, said Busch is something special. “Or else, why would I have given him this chance at his age,” Roush said.

Busch passed McMurray, who is 26 and the leader in the rookie-of-the-year race, 12 laps from the end of the 250-lap race. McMurray ended up fifth and said, “This car needed 30 laps with no [caution] flags at the end.”

Busch had finished second here last year. “This makes up for the disappointment,” Busch said.

He walked away and someone offered Busch a shirt to sign. Busch signed.

*

Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.