Auto Club Speedway Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor These days Jimmie Johnson is considered one of the greatest of all-time with seven championships and 80 wins to his name, but there was a time when the California native was a fresh faced rookie just looking to make a mark on the sport. As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Auto Club Speedway this weekend, we’ll take a look back at the 2002 NAPA 500 in this week’s “Throwback Thursday Theater”, where Johnson scored the first of his many wins. Johnson signedRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After stops in Las Vegas and Phoenix to kick off the Western swing, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series wraps up their venture to the West Coast this weekend as they roll into Southern California to do battle on the two mile Auto Club Speedway in Sunday’s Auto Club 400. Built on the site of an old steel mill featured in the movie “Terminator”, the two mile oval has been a part of the NASCAR schedule since opening in 1997. The track has gone throughRead More

By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter Author’s note: This is part of a 10-part series discussing tracks around the world that I feel would be a good fit for the Verizon IndyCar Series. The opinions here are expressed solely of the author and not necessarily of the Motorsports Tribune. While Auto Club Speedway only had a relatively short stint in Indy car racing history, it has rightfully earned its place at the top of the list. The 2-mile Speedway located in Fontana, California opened in 1997 on the site of theRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer Many drivers in motorsport are looking to move up the open wheel racing ladder. In this article series, we’ll take a look at several drivers that we believe should be in the Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires. The next driver on our list is Tim de Silva. He has raced in Pacific F2000 the last two seasons, winning the 2016 championship before the final race weekend of the season at Auto Club Speedway. In 2015, de Silva droveRead More

By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter A return by IndyCar to Auto Club Speedway as a replacement event for the canceled Grand Prix of Boston seems unlikely. Dave Allen, president of Auto Club Speedway, told Tribute Racing that the lines of communication are open, but admitted that there would be some issues with scheduling a race. “Our door is always open to listen, but we have not been contacted by INDYCAR. And even if we were, it’d be hard to shuffle the track calendar we currently have in place to accommodateRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer After four days of deliberations, NASCAR handed down their penalties stemming from the race weekend at Auto Club Speedway on Thursday. For his failure to fulfill his media obligations at the conclusion of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Saturday, Kyle Busch was fined $10,000 and placed on NASCAR probation for the next four championship races through April 27th. Danica Patrick also earned a behavioral penalty from NASCAR for leaving her car and walking onto a hot track after her incident with Kasey Kahne inRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor A.J. Allmendinger had a tough road ahead of him in Sunday’s Auto Club 400. Allmendinger recorded the 11th-fastest speed in qualifying, but before the race his team noticed a issue with a rear-end gear. “It was a good catch by our crew to see the burnt gear, from the sound of it; it wasn’t something you really notice, the detail they put into building these race cars and going over them was big. They caught it and saved our day,” Allmendinger said. The No. 47Read More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor It seemed like everything was lining up for Austin Dillon heading into Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway. Dillon was off to the best start to a season in his NASCAR Sprint Cup career through four races, he also won Saturday’s XFINITY Series event in dramatic fashion and he was starting from the pole in the Sprint Cup Series race. Despite starting from the top spot, Dillon was unable to lead a lap in Sunday’s race as he dealt with a loose-handling racecarRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Martin Truex Jr. had one of the strongest cars in Sunday’s Auto Club Speedway before close-quarters racing from Joey Logano’s Ford sent him into the outside wall on Lap 152. Truex insisted Logano hit him. Though Truex was able to continue, things went from bad to worse for the driver of the No. 78 Toyota, who was flagged for speeding when he brought his car onto pit road two laps later to deal with the damage. “We had a good run going until theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FONTANA, Calif. – A collision with Kasey Kahne’s Chevrolet ruined a promising afternoon for Danica Patrick in Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway. Patrick started 31st and had worked her way up to 19th before wrecking hard into the Turn 1 wall on Lap 121 after contact from Kahne’s Chevy. Kahne was a lap down at the time, thanks to an earlier unscheduled pit stop. “We were on a restart, and I had a run on him so I went down low,”Read More