44th Busch Light Clash Takes off at the Coliseum
This weekend begins a new era in competition for NASCAR’s Cup Series, which embarks on the use of its seventh generation NextGen cars at a venue where it’s never raced before: the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. While the Coliseum has hosted a variety of two-wheeled and four-wheeled events on dirt, using the famous Peristyle for launches, NASCAR and the venue’s management have built an asphalt quarter-mile track inside the football field for the Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum.
It might be the first time NASCAR’s Cup Series raced at the Coliseum – and the first time the Clash has been held anywhere other than Daytona International Speedway since it began in 1979 – but there’s been racing both inside and out of the track since the early 1900s. The Mickey Thompson stadium races here were a big draw; seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson drove Mickey Thompson Stadium Trucks here in the early 1990s. A meeting at the 1993 race brought the Southern California native to NASCAR – the rest is history!
Of course, stock cars on a quarter-mile track isn’t unusual; events on a circuit of that size are contested on a weekly basis. But this is the first time the top stars of stock car racing will work on a track of this size and, just looking at the empty Coliseum and seeing the three lanes set up by NASCAR, this should be quite the fight between NASCAR’s stars. It’s also important to take into account the fact that next week is the start of Speed Weeks at Daytona International Speedway, making logistics for the teams an issue, especially if they have to repair brand new race cars before the largest and most important event of the 2022 season, the Daytona 500.
Most teams have brought a single car and many of the drivers have wide experience on short tracks. Ross Chastain, driving a Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing, spent Friday morning on a different endeavor: working with the NASCAR Foundation. The Foundation, started by Betty Jane France, is donating $250,000 for Los Angeles kids to have bicycles, in particular citing inner-city kids. It was pointed out that 70 percent of school-age children now spend more than seven hours per day attached to their computer or television screens, when they could or should be outside enjoying exercise. Hopefully this will help to change that.
The weekend’s activities are set, with the majority of the racing occurring on Sunday, February 6th. There will be practice and qualifying on Saturday for this Busch Light Clash, with practices beginning at 9:30AM and continuing through 11:30 in the morning (Pacific time, of course). There’s a long pause, with plenty of media activities to get opinions from drivers until qualifying begins at 5:30PM, offering three laps for all positions.
The practice groups were set by owner points at the close of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series. That puts 2021 champion Kyle Larson’s Chevrolet first in group 3, while runner-up Martin Truex Jr leads the second group with his Toyota and Denny Hamlin’s Toyota, by virtue of his third-place standing in the 2021 campaign in third place. The list continues with Chase Elliott (Chevy), Kevin Harvick (Ford) and Team Penske’s Austin Cindric, driving the No. 2 Ford formerly wheeled by the departed Brad Keselowski second in the first group.
Kurt Busch, who raced for the now-defunct Chip Ganassi Racing and now is the second Toyota driver for 23XI Racing, is the final driver in the first practice group, while Corey LaJoie is the last driver in Group 2 in Spire Motorsports’ Chevy and the third group is anchored by Ryan Preece’s Rick Ware Racing Ford. While the Clash is open to as many as 40 cars, 36 entries made the hike to the West Coast for this premiere event.
The debut of NASCAR’s seventh generation racecar, one that’s been in development – with famed chassis builder Dallara – for more than two years and has been thoroughly tested by teams. With drivers finally using an industry-standard sequential gearbox, a single center-lock wheel nut, rack and pinion steering as well as independent rear suspension, using 670 horsepower engines on these new cars, fans are in for some interesting details once practice begins. Everyone has practiced both privately and in multi-car tests, but when the heat of competition begins, all the previous work goes out the window.
On Sunday, four heat races of 25 laps each start at the crack of noon, with the top four in each heat race locked into the first 16 positions in the main event. Positions 17 through 22 are for drivers who have raced their way through the Last Chance Qualifier 50-lap races. The 23rd and final car/driver combo gets into the event by finishing highest in the 2021 standings but not transferring on finishing position In the heats or the Last Chance Qualifier events.
This weekend’s weather should evoke jealousy from anyone stuck anywhere else. After a start to the year of chilly and cloudy weather, Chamber of Commerce conditions are expected for Southern California. On Friday, for instance temps were an easy five degrees warmer than the day before (low 70s) and sunny skies are predicted throughout the weekend, warming more each day.
Since no one has turned a wheel In anger on these cars – you can practice all you want but it’s not real until, well, it’s real, it’ll be tough to make predictions. But as NASCAROnFOX commentator Tony Stewart said, “We have to think of this as an event more than a race. We should expect some aggression in the heat races and certainly the Last Chance Qualifiers towards the end of each run.”
“Some equipment will get torn up because nobody really knows where the apexes are,” added Clint Bowyer. “The track is shaped more like a football than anywhere else we go, so seeing each apex and each corner will be tough. And with the inside walls, well, all bets are off.”