NASCAR, Is It Too Late to Reconsider about Auto Club?

What Happened?

Kyle Busch won in only his second career NASCAR Cup Series points race with Richard Childress Racing coming at Auto Club Speedway on Sunday, Feb. 26 with Chase Elliott close behind in second. Ross Chastain finished third with teammate Daniel Suarez and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick in tow.

The victory marked Busch’s fourth career Cup win at the southern California race track and his first for Chevrolet since 2007.

But What Really Happened?

Sunday was a reminder of why this Auto Club track shouldn’t be reconfigured.

Listen, short tracks are great. However, there is an argument that there are plenty of short tracks in the United States already. We are, after all, already going to one that was at one point literally falling apart for this year’s All-Star Race. Don’t get me wrong; heading back to North Wilkesboro Speedway is really freaking cool.

But we need an Auto Club, 2-mile layout going forward. If not here? We need to find it somewhere else.

Now, is Auto Club Speedway considered a “cookie-cutter” style circuit? Absolutely. Regardless, the Next Gen car works perfectly on them.

For the last two races at the California track, we have seen the field fan out wildly on restarts, continuing to play with different lanes regardless of running position after long green flag runs. It has become a driver’s circuit again, thank goodness.

Additionally, while multi-groove racing is fun to watch on its own, the 26-year-old racing surface has also become perfect for race strategy. Similar to what we see at Darlington Raceway today, the Fontana asphalt shreds tires, and that makes for some fun pit road strategy.

Every pit stop mattered on Sunday, and if it weren’t for that final long green flag period that saw Busch re-inherit the lead from Michael McDowell, who was waiting for a caution on old tires himself, we likely would have seen some interesting late-race pit gambles.

Racing venues where tires matter more than track position offer crew chiefs a far bigger say in race strategy than they would the other way around. Not to…