They’re Getting Worked Up Over Move of Southern 500

From the sound of the wailing coming from Dixie over the moving of the Southern 500 from Labor Day weekend to November to accommodate a second Winston Cup date at California Speedway, you’d think Sherman was marching through Atlanta again.

The race will still be at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, but not on the weekend it has occupied every year since 1950, when it was the first on a NASCAR superspeedway.

“It’s un-American, that’s what it is,” wrote Monte Dutton, syndicated columnist for the Gaston (N.C.) Gazette. “North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham is going to lose one of its races -- and that’s terrible -- but the vilest evil lies in the official confirmation that the Southern 500, in the form fans have known it for 54 years, will be no more in 2004.

“Instead, stock-car racing’s Labor Day celebration will be held in Fontana, Calif., which is a little like the National Football League’s brain trust announcing that an upcoming Super Bowl will be played in Kabul.”

When NASCAR officials decided to give a second date to California Speedway on Labor Day weekend without expanding the already crowded 38-race schedule, it meant eliminating Rockingham’s fall date and giving it to Darlington to replace its Labor Day date. Darlington also has a spring race in March.

The move, said NASCAR President Mike Helton, was part of NASCAR’s “Realignment 2004 and Beyond,” and was being done to “grow the sport” by “modernizing tradition.”

Dutton blistered both phrases:

“There’s that term again: ‘Grow the sport.’ The sport can grow, but it can’t be grown. It’s not corn. It’s also not grammatically correct. It’s an absurd use of the language by businessmen who never learned to speak or write it properly. It’s an example of people coming up with what they consider [wrongly] to be a clever term and then using it ad nauseam.

On tradition, he wrote: “[It] can’t be modernized. Tradition can only be kept or, in NASCAR’s case, abandoned.”

Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer, lapsed into the California cliche repeated by most Easterners envious of our climate and open lifestyle when he wrote:

“Ahh, Labor Day weekend and NASCAR. The smell of the smog. The threat of the earthquakes. The rich tradition of becoming rich at the expense of what’s right.

“NASCAR is at it again, adjusting its schedule with no regard for the sport’s red-clay history. To let California hold its second race on Labor Day weekend -- the home of the Southern 500 at Darlington for more than 50 years -- is a travesty of racing justice.”

It has been suggested that NASCAR is giving its premier series a more national look as a favor to its new title sponsor, Nextel Communications. That too concerns the Southern bloc.

“Not long ago, there were nine big-time race weekends in the Carolinas,” wrote Fowler. “With the loss of two races at North Wilkesboro [in 1997] and one at Rockingham, plus the possible loss of The Winston from Lowe’s Motor Speedway, we may be down to five in 2004.

“It’s not wrong that NASCAR has gone national. But does it have to thumb its nose at its Southern roots so often?”

Even some of the drivers are unhappy over the changes, according to Godwin Kelly of the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Said Ward Burton: “I don’t like being in California on Labor Day. I don’t think any of us do.”

Added Sterling Marlin: “It’s like moving the Masters or Kentucky Derby. It’s been there since Day 1. To me, Labor Day means going to Darlington. I don’t mind going to California, but I wish they’d keep that Southern 500 on Labor Day.”

Not all drivers, however, are displeased.

“In my opinion, a second date for California is outstanding,” said Derrike Cope, 1990 Daytona 500 winner. “It’s a big market with obvious great ties to television. I’m a firm believer that you got to have that West Coast market. Coupled with Sears Point [in Northern California], the second date at California will be a great addition.”

Said Ken Schrader, NASCAR’s busiest driver: “I don’t see it as Rockingham losing a date. I see it as the owners of the tracks moving a race from one facility to another. I definitely believe the second date at Fontana is beneficial to NASCAR.”

International Speedway Corp., controlled by the France family, which owns NASCAR, owns the California, Darlington and Rockingham tracks.

When Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart was asked his opinion of the schedule change, he said, “Well, it is what it is. I don’t make up the schedule. Wherever we are on a Saturday or a Sunday is where we are. NASCAR has obviously done a great job of growing this sport, and if a second race at California is a way to continue that growth, then who’s to argue?”

Gordon and Montoya

Jeff Gordon’s driving of Juan Pablo Montoya’s Williams-BMW Formula One car last week on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course, where the two swapped cars, impressed Montoya.

“He did a lot better than a lot of young kids coming up who are in single-seaters all the time,” said the 2000 Indianapolis 500 winner. “All the team was very impressed with his performance, and the team took it quite seriously. He got in the car and did a good job.”

Sir Frank Williams, the car owner, was not at Indianapolis but lavishly praised Gordon in a news conference during the Formula One weekend in Montreal.

“The reports that I received from those present were that he is a really, really good driver, and that he was unafraid of the car. His NASCAR car was braking at 250 meters, approximately at the end of the pit straight, and after about two laps in the F1 car he was braking at 75 meters. His lap times were only one second slower than Juan’s.

“The good news is that he is very, very quick, and the bad news is that we can’t afford him. He is a winning NASCAR driver and his earnings, I am told, are out of sight. But I should say on behalf of all my colleagues here [other F1 owners], we would all love to have a world-class U.S. driver in a Grand Prix team.”

Historic Sports Cars

Vintage NASCAR Winston Cup cars, Indy cars and historic Can-Am cars will be featured in the second annual Southern California Historic Sports Car Festival this weekend at California Speedway. The races, sponsored by Racer magazine, will be run on the speedway’s 21-turn, 2.8-mile infield road course.

Eleven trophy groups and one featured exhibition group, the Lotus Sports Challenge, will compete on Sunday. Qualifying is Saturday, with practice today. All seating will be in the infield grandstand area.

Porsche lovers will get a bonus with the West Coast round of the East Coast-originated Porsche GT Americas Cup championship.

More than 180 Corvettes are expected to gather Sunday at 8:30 a.m. in Lot 3 for the start of a 2000-mile journey to Bowling Green, Ky., home of the Corvettes. More than 6,000 Corvettes owners have registered for the National Corvette Caravan, which will stage at various points around the country, to celebrate the car’s 50th anniversary.

Last Laps

J.J. Yeley, who won consecutive U.S. Auto Club races last weekend, is closing in on the USAC record of 19 wins in a single season. After winning a Silver Crown race Saturday night in Terre Haute, Ind., and a midget race Sunday night in Kokomo, Ind., the Phoenix driver has 12. Jay Drake, Sleepy Tripp and A.J. Foyt share the record at 19.

Construction on Mopar Drag City, a $5-million quarter-mile drag strip, will begin today near the Banning municipal airport. It will be operated by All American Racing, LLC, and sanctioned by the National Hot Rod Assn. Racing is scheduled to start in February 2004.

The ninth annual Kyle Petty Charity Ride from Palm Springs to Daytona Beach, Fla., will start Sunday at 7 a.m. from the Desert Springs Marriott Resort. The week-long motorcycle ride benefits several charities, among them the Victory Junction Gang Camp for kids. Petty, who will be driving in Sunday’s Winston Cup race in Sonoma, will join the ride Sunday evening in Sedona, Ariz.

Passings

A memorial gathering for Carroll Smith, engineer, author and team manager of Carroll Shelby’s Ford GT program, will be held Wednesday at the Neighborhood Church, 415 Paseo del Mar, Palos Verdes Estates. Smith, 71, died of pancreatic cancer May 16.