Fontana won’t sell out
I walked into the office this morning to my weekend mail, included in it was a promotional flyer on buying tickets for NASCAR's Auto Club 500. The offer was essentially, buy one overpriced ticket for Sunday's race, and get tickets for Friday and Saturday, and half off a paddock pass. With only 12 days or so before the race, there must be big number of unsold tickets, which has made the promoters nervous. Very unusual for NASCAR. Maybe it was the moving of the date, who knows!
Also, as a long-time staunch supporter of Champ Car, I was happy to see the pit rule changes for 2005! All I can say is, Thank God! What in the world were they thinking last year with that silly rule (seriously, I know the rule was implemented partly because they wanted the fastest cars out front dicing for the lead without fuel economy runs). In my opinion, last year's rule was trying to micro-manage the event too much (didn't work). I love the possibility of a team that doesn't have a chance to win on outright speed, using every resource they have, to outmaneuver the top teams and win an occasional race. There have been incredibly exciting "fuel-run gamble" races over the years (Long Beach Andretti Victory, Max Papis Podium Laguna Seca, Mark Blundell at Detroit years ago, and of course the famous Portland three cars across the line at one time finish). I think it takes a sometimes boring follow-the-leader race, and makes it interesting to watch! Charlie Frank, Westlake Village, CA