Fat Chance For Restrictor Plates in California

I don't know if the intent was there, but California Speedway Auto Club Speedway president Gillian Zucker sure made waves highly unrelated to the racing held at her track last weekend.

Instead of talking up the record 33 lead changes at the track or the impressive mettle showed by fans who stuck out one of the worst weather weekends in NASCAR history, she instead changed the post-race story but floating the idea that she'd be interested in increasing the banking of the Fontana speedway if significant changes need to be made to alleviate the track's drainage problem.

Such a change would completely alter the track's dynamic and create the potential for NASCAR to need restrictor plates at the 2-mile track because speeds would rise dramatically.

Higher-ups in the parent organization of ACS, International Speedway Corporation, squashed that thought quickly and painlessly on Thursday -- and it didn't necessarily come with an attitude of "thanks but no thanks".

It was a very clean-cut "No" from Wes Harris, ISC's senior director of investor and corporate relations. A "No, Ms. Zucker, please don't talk about these things again before consulting with your bosses"-type of statement.

From SPEED.com:

[...] [T]here are no plans for such an extreme and costly makeover. In fact, Harris said, it isn't even in the discussion phase, nor is it likely to be.

"We have got some really sweet things and strong momentum out there in California with having our new race partner, Auto Club, as well as Pepsi taking a very substantial position in the fall race," Harris said. "There are no plans to make any changes at this point. The racing was very good out there, the new car ran well."

Apparently there's a whole lot of people in Southern California that have missed out on the "sweet things" there are at California. Perhaps they missed out on how exactly having Auto Club sponsor the track makes the racing more entertaining.

Or is that just me?

As for the restrictor plate idea, I couldn't be happier. NASCAR has no business 1) running more of those races and 2) sinking money into a track that many fans would celebrate over if it lost one or both its dates for many reasons not even near not being a restrictor plate track.