This is it: No more excuses for Auto Club Speedway (cont'd)

This weekend's event, California's first in the Chase, is supposed to change all that. Giving up the Labor Day weekend date for Atlanta's old spot in the 10-race playoff is supposed to solve a lot of problems -- give fans a break from the unrelenting heat that often accompanied the old August weekend, remove the lure of a holiday that may tempt people to go out of town, provide potential fans with a more compelling reason to buy tickets and come watch the race.

In theory, it all sounds good. Finally, Auto Club Speedway has everything it's ever wanted. The forecast for Sunday is 75 degrees with a zero chance of precipitation, perfect racing weather. The midway and retail store and Wolfgang Puck restaurant are all ready and waiting. Now it just boils down to a simple question.

Degree of difficulty

Drivers say adding banking from the current 14 degrees to 23 degrees is the wrong move for Auto Club Speedway.

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Will they show up? For the speedway's sake, you certainly hope so. No question, this is a place where parent company International Speedway Corp. grossly overestimated the market demand, and president Gillian Zucker and her staff have been paying for it. But it's also a track that's rapidly running out of excuses.

A second annual race, a prime-time East Coast start on a summer holiday weekend, dozens upon dozens of amenities, now a Chase event at a more pleasant time of year -- California has tried it all, and to this point it's still struggled to carve those much-needed niches both in the Southern California sports market and the mind of the traditional NASCAR fan. If a Chase race in better weather doesn't jumpstart this speedway, then what is it going to take?

Maybe 23-degree corner banking, according to a report last week in the Los Angeles Times. Evidently the track has at last come to grips with its reputation as a venue for rather mundane competition, something most race fans figured out years ago, and has approached ISC about a $30 million project to raise the banking in its 14-degree corners.

It's not unheard of; the race track company did something similar years ago at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and the result was a much more compelling venue. But there wasn't a recession going on then. Given the fact that ISC's third-quarter profits were down 89 percent -- from $38.8 million to $4.4 million, according to The Wall Street Journal -- such an expensive renovation seems a fantastical prospect.

Ultimately the request sounds a little desperate, especially given that the track's first Chase race hasn't even happened yet. It makes you wonder if the brass at California are seeing the ticket returns, and trying to prepare a tactical next step. And then came a broadside from one of the track's favorite sons, Golden State native and three-time California race winner Jeff Gordon, who pointed out that the region hasn't even been able to support an NFL franchise, and sounded like any attempt to goose interest would be an exercise in futility.

"I don't think you can do anything. Maybe make it into a Bristol, or something like that," Gordon said last week at Kansas. "But beyond that, I don't think you're going to do anything that's going to change the interest level out there. There are just so many options and things to do. I think it's a great track. Is it our most exciting one? Maybe not our most exciting one. But I still think it's a great track, a great facility. If they're not packing the stands, that's not it. It's something else."

Hey, maybe the Chase race will make a difference anyway. Maybe fans will be spurred to come out by the tight points race, or the sight of favorites like Mark Martin and Tony Stewart near the top of the standings. Maybe the date change will help California draw its best crowd in years, just as it did for Atlanta a month ago, and the pressure on the track will ease a little bit.

That's the best-case scenario. But if that doesn't happen, and it's another Sunday dominated by empty seats? Who knows what happens next. Who knows what NASCAR and ISC can do. Because for Auto Club Speedway, there are no more excuses.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.