LOS ANGELES – NASCAR was the big winner at the glitzy Los Angeles gala held inside the Memorial Arena.
To boost energy ahead of the upcoming season, NASCAR broke the old mold and held a pilot exhibition race inside one of the sport’s most iconic venues. The race itself over a quarter-mile makeshift asphalt oval was a sideshow on Sunday’s spectacular show for Fox Sports.
How successful was Busch Light Clash? The two losers attacked a pair of senior NASCAR executives as they passed the USC locker room.
One is Ben Kennedy, the 30-year-old great-grandson of the NASCAR founder and futurist who pushed The Clash from its birthplace in Daytona across the country and to the Colosseum.
“A really good day for the sport as a whole,” Kennedy said.
The clash was successful before a single race car drove through the Southern California soccer team’s tunnel and down the smooth, black asphalt that covered the Trojan team’s field. Stone Cube performed a six-minute set from Peristyle during a brief “break,” and Pitbull with checkered-themed reserve dancers used the same stage for a pre-race concert his.
The grand marshals are the great sportsmen of Los Angeles, and Jeff Gordon lit the cauldron built for the 1932 Summer Olympics before the race even began. Celebrities walked the red carpet, the USC student body was packed early, and the crowd booed Kyle Busch looking like a bunch of old pros at a driver’s presentation.
The name of the race is the same, but everything else about The Clash’s 44th run is different.
Joey Logano is the real winner of the race and like most in the industry, has received a lot of praise on NASCAR for successfully executing Kennedy’s vision.
“The hype around this, you watch football games lately, they advertisement Logano as much as they are promoting the Daytona 500,” said Logano. “That kind of puts it in perspective a little bit on what this event means for our sport, how big of a gamble is this really, isn’t it? This could have turned out terrible. It went great. ”
The runner-up added Busch: “Ben Kennedy and the guys at NASCAR, if this doesn’t work out, it’s going to get worse.”
Instead, Busch was one of those drivers who appreciated Kennedy.
NASCAR moved Clash to Los Angeles from the Daytona International Speedway, its sole home since its founding in 1979, as part of a focused effort to break with its longstanding traditions. And the race was a great success before a single race car sped through the Southern California soccer team’s tunnel and onto the smooth, black asphalt that covered the Trojan team’s field.
The Colosseum can hold about 60,000 fans for The Clash, and while it’s not sold out, the crowds are both loud and crowded. NASCAR said earlier in the week that 70 percent of those who purchased tickets identified as first-time racegoers and a buildup in Los Angeles for next week. Super Bowl just help promote NASCAR’s big party.
The name of the race is the same, but everything else about The Clash’s 44th run is different.
“I think it’s a risk. We knew that from the start,” Kennedy said. “As we’ve talked about schedules over the past few years, we’ve talked about boldness, we’ve talked about innovation. This is something new, something different. We challenged ourselves, the group challenged ourselves, to think differently about the event.
“We’re really proud of the results.”
The pitch was determined by the heat races held the previous Sunday and a pair of last-chance qualifiers to give the drivers one last chance to hit the 23-car starting grid. The format is for mental racing in the “LCQ” finals as rookie Austin Cindric jumps and swerves through traffic as he tries to move into the main event.
Cindric failed but still had a good track record: NASCAR champions Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch were among the drivers who failed to make it past the lap.
Kyle Busch made an outstanding start to the 150 round feature including a scheduled stop in Round 75 for Ice Cube’s set. Busch dominated in the first half but was eventually caught by Logano, who never gave Busch a chance to move him out of the way for the win.
Logano won Clash for the second time in his career. This is the fifth win for Team Penske, which has won three of the last six runs of the tournament in what is traditionally a warm-up for the Daytona 500.
Nothing learned in Los Angeles will carry over to the season-opening Daytona 500 on February 21, but the race is the first for NASCAR’s new car. Next Generation is a long-planned project that was postponed for a season due to the pandemic.
The car is designed to cut costs for teams, even compete across disciplines, and create a better racing product. Next Gen did not disappoint with its debut on the shortest track on the NASCAR schedule.
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