The disaster that was the Cup race at Fontana
On the Wednesday prior to last Sunday’s race at California Speedway, the track held a glitzy only in Hollywood style party. Jeff Gordon, sporting a three-day growth of beard that’s considered chic among Hollywood’s elite, was doing doughnuts in the parking lot in a Corvette with singer Rihanna in the passenger seat.
Track president Gillian Zucker hired a company that normally stages events such as movie premieres and the Emmy’s to stage the affair, complete with an honest to goodness red carpet. Zucker was hoping to raise awareness among the locals; create a ‘buzz’ as marketers are so fond of saying. ‘Hundreds’ of Hollywood ‘A’ list celebs rubbed elbows with NASCAR’s elite. Juan Pablo Montoya, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin joined Gordon.
Even the ‘A’ list celebrity queen Paris Hilton showed up. Never one to allow the spotlight to shine anywhere else, Hilton made a grand entrance flirted with Hamlin and got her picture taken every time she moved. One memorable photo shows Hilton and a visibly uncomfortable NASCAR president Mike Helton.
Despite the ‘buzz’ however California Speedway had more empty seats this year than last. By some counts, unofficial of course, 40,000 of the 92,000 seats were empty Sunday night. Of course a lot of that had to do with the fact that those empty seats that were hot enough to fry an egg on. More at Cup Scene