In California, the ghosts of Ontario are never far away (cont'd)

A few miles down I-10 stands its successor, gleaming California Speedway, which faces its own challenge in trying to galvanize an expansive population base around a series still considered a novelty by many in this part of the world. But founders of the Fontana track heeded the lessons learned at Ontario, where the brief, 10-year lifespan stands as a testament to NASCAR's continuing struggle to gain a foothold in the nation's second-largest market, and where the ruins are a reminder that in the infamously fickle metro Los Angeles area, anything can turn to dust.

It all started with so much promise. Befitting its location, Ontario's original investors were a star-studded lot, ranging from racing legends like Parnelli Jones and Roger Penske to actors like Paul Newman and Kirk Douglas. Indianapolis embraced its western twin, which staged an open-wheel event on Labor Day weekend modeled after the Indy 500 on Memorial Day. A.J. Foyt won the first NASCAR race in 1971. Programs from those ambitious early years, available in the gift shop at the city of Ontario museum, boast of an infield larger than two Disneyland theme parks, and grand marshals like Steve Garvey and Valerie Bertinelli.

But even then, there were concerns. The track's year-round restaurant never caught on with locals, who at the time considered the facility too far out of town. Debt began to pile up. Speedway officials, looking for additional streams of revenue, held a concert festival in 1974 called the California Jam, which would become wilder than anything that ever happened on the racetrack. Headliner Deep Purple, the best-selling band in the world at the time, arrived in its own airplane and had to make a hasty exit via helicopter, dodging police who were after band members for trashing television cameras and leaving the stage in flames.

It was the track's last big bang. Benny Parsons won the final NASCAR race at the opulent but overdrawn speedway in November of 1980, and soon after the place was shut down. When Penske prepared to build his own track in the Inland Empire, this one on the site of an old steel mill in Fontana, he used Ontario as a blueprint of what not to do. Rather than saddle the new project with debt, he funded its construction by taking his company public and generating $80 million in cash. Rather than build too many seats, he began with a relatively modest 71,000 to keep demand high.

Those tactics worked -- California Speedway sold out its first seven races, and was sold to the France-run International Speedway Corp. in 1999. But nothing comes easy in L.A. The 2-mile oval, since expanded to 92,000 seats, hasn't drawn a full house since it added a second Nextel Cup event in 2004, and isn't likely to sell out Sunday in the midst of a withering heat wave spiking the temperature well above 100 degrees. The place is under the microscope, like a Hollywood starlet trying to recover from a major studio release that didn't live up to expectations.

That's the way it is in this part of Southern California, which has lost two NFL teams, seen the venerable old road course at Riverside sold to developers, and watched auto racing's premier edifice yield to the wrecking ball. California Speedway has everything -- beautiful and spacious infield facilities, a commuter train station, a retail midway, and a restaurant by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. But the ghosts of Ontario are never very far away.