Engineers to investigate Fontana track’s water woes

By Kenny Bruce - Assistant Managing Editor

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

NASCAR officials check the condition of the track during a red flag during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway.

Harry How
Getty Images

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FONTANA, Calif. – Auto Club Speedway President Gillian Zucker said Monday that engineers will arrive this week to determine what can be done to correct drainage problems on the 2-mile track.

Water seeping up through seams in the asphalt played havoc with track drying efforts during the Auto Club 500 race weekend, delaying the completion of the Sprint Cup Series race by one day. The seepage, referred to as “weepers,” was also blamed for two accidents during the early laps of the Cup event.

“A leaky race track is unacceptable,” Zucker said. “We will have engineers here [Tuesday], and we will fix it.”

Auto Club Speedway, which hosts two Cup races annually, is one of 12 tracks owned by International Speedway Corp.

Zucker said that when it became evident that water underneath the track was a big part of the problem, the company’s engineers were notified.

“It’s something we want to jump on immediately, because it’s has to be fixed,” she said.

“This wasn’t a problem with water over the past few days; this was a problem with water over the past month. A significant amount of water has fallen in this part of the country that normally doesn’t.”

According to the Web site weather.com, nearly 11 inches of rain has fallen in the Fontana area since Jan. 1, approximately 4 inches above the annual average.

The start of Sunday’s race was delayed by 2 1/2 hours as track workers dried the racing surface, only to discover water seeping through seams on both ends of the speedway. Eleven laps had been completed when Denny Hamlin’s Toyota slid up the track and smacked the wall in Turn 3. Five laps later, another crash – this one involving Casey Mears, Sam Hornish Jr., Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Reed Sorenson – led officials to red-flag the race.

Officials cut lines in the track surface where the seams in the track met to bleed out the water underneath.

Rain showers brought the caution flag out twice more before the race was red-flagged a second time after 87 laps. After a stoppage of 4.5 hours, officials gave up and rescheduled the event for Monday.

Zucker defended NASCAR’s decision to try to dry the track late Sunday evening, even though if the race had resumed, it’s likely it would have been stopped after lap 125 when it reached its halfway point and would have been “official” according to the NASCAR rulebook.

“I was in NASCAR control while all the decision-making was taking place,” she said. “It was one of these situations where you’re trying to do the right thing for all of the sponsors, the teams, the fans, everybody who was here to see a race on a Sunday. Our obligation and their obligation as a sanctioning body is to do everything we can to get the race in. That’s what they did.

“I think it’s really easy to sit ... and criticize, but this is what we’re here for, to try to put a race on. A lot of people tried really hard
to do the right thing.”

Wet conditions forced officials to cancel Cup qualifying on Friday, and brought an end to Saturday’s lone Cup practice session after just 30 minutes.

NASCAR’s Nationwide Series race, originally scheduled for Feb. 23, was also a victim of the weather. The series’ second race was run in its entirety on Monday, following the completion of the Cup race.