ShareThisBy MIKE MULHERN
Another Labor Day weekend is rolling around, and Los Angeles is still not Darlington, and the Southern 500 is still dead.
Somehow the "Southern California 500" wouldn't have quite the same ring.
"I grew up going to Darlington on this weekend every year," Kyle Petty said. "It was like Christmas, Thanksgiving or Easter.
"Some things are just givens, and Darlington on Labor Day was one. But, hey, things change. We had to grow with the sport and head west. We've been coming to California Speedway for a while. Now we just come back on Labor Day.
"It's not the Southern 500, but it's still a race."
And this Southern California market is changing, rapidly. Accelerating immigration has turned Los Angeles into a market that is 50 percent Hispanic, making NASCAR's Hispanic initiatives ever more important. The U.S. Census Bureau shows that 42 percent of Californians speak a language other than English at home, and most of that group speaks Spanish _ nearly 30 percent of the population of this state.
Gillian Zucker, who just wrapped up her first full year running California Speedway, the West Coast anchor track for the France family, is pushing to go after the Hispanic market here. For one, the track just upgraded its web site to include a Spanish language section, and other NASCAR web sites are also adding specifically Hispanic pages.
"With Juan Pablo Montoya joining the NASCAR Cup series, it has become even more vital for us to engage the Spanish-speaking fan base," Zucker said. "This is yet another step in our aggressive Hispanic outreach plan."
The economic impact of NASCAR racing in the West, where the sport now holds six Nextel Cup races annually, is rising fast. A new report on nearby Phoenix International Raceway, for example, shows that last year that track pumped $473 million into the Arizona economy, making that it "the single most powerful event engine in the state," with more impact than the 2008 Super Bowl, according to projections.
NASCAR's move from South Carolina to Los Angeles for the final big weekend of the summer season "was just a change that had to be done to help grow the sport," Petty said. "It was something that was good for the sport.
"We have a lot of races in the Southeast, the Northeast and Midwest. We had to make a balance with more races in the West. We have done a good job by adding another race here. It's important we keep working on New York City and in the Northwest (Seattle). We need to hit those areas. But the Busch series is in Mexico City, and there has been a lot of talk about Montreal, Canada.
"NASCAR is doing a good job of balancing the schedule. You're never going to make everyone happy, but they do a good job. This is just a different race with a new tradition, a twilight race (nearly four hours long), and that's the way it is.
"We have the chase now, that's different, too. The sport always has to change to grow and get better. It's just a part of sports. We add tracks, and when you do that, you have to give up something. Some people are going to agree, others not. But it's just part of the deal."
