2006 California 500 Postscript

Roush Racing continues to grow at a rather frightening rate, and it continues to win. Matt Kenseth's California 500 win continues a recent near-monopoly by the Roush organization on intermediate superspeedways, and any thought that it would be derailed this time was dashed almost immediately. Roush also posted a rare sweep of all three NASCAR touring series on the same weekend when Mark Martin rather easily cruised to victory in the Trucks, then Greg Biffle led the way to win the BGN 300.

Roush Racing is for all practical purposes the only Ford organization in NASCAR, and its success in 2005's playoff format led to NASCAR's attempt to limit ownership of race teams, a fundamentally necessary idea that NASCAR needs to have the courage to prosecute to its end.

Roush so dominated the weekend that it made the blown engine of Tony Stewart and the continuing struggle of Dodge all the more graphic. Though Kasey Kahne had a good effort in his Ray Evernham Charger, that was largely it as far as Dodge went, as the Penske pair of Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman continued to struggle with the two-year-old Intrepid they brought to Fontana, a model Penske Racing's Don Miller has said will be raced as long as is allowed by Dodge.

One wonders if someone at Dodge has given up on the Charger - which if true may be a bad sign for Dodge's entire NASCAR program.

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Fontana's lack of good racing is wrongly blamed on the track's flat banking. Flattish speedways have been blamed for lack of good quality racing for some years now, and among the more villified has been New Hampshire International Speedway. Many point to Homestead as the model for how to respond. Homestead banked up to 20 degrees and went with progressive banking, and Fontana's new president has mentioned with regard to the California Speedway.

The result of higher and progressive banking at Homestead has been faster speeds, but the increase in side-by-side racing has generally been less than promoted. Homestead's November 2005 400-miler saw some intense battling for the lead and a dramatic finish, but the previous two Homestead races were uninspiring affairs, particularly November 2004.

Some blame the scheduling of the first Fontana race to late February, within two weeks of NASCAR's annual trek to Las Vegas; others point to the fact the track now has two dates. Either way, it remains the lack of good racing that is the main problem here, and the track configuration isn't the reason.

One need look at Fontana's Indycar races, where the cars have more downforce, more tire, and in the late 1990s added air-displacement rails to the mix, making the draft more effective. Certainly the Busch Series package run at Daytona is worth looking at as far as tracks like Fontana go.