NASCAR’s Wacky L.A. Experiment Forgot One Thing — The Racing
Rule No. 1: Don’t forget the racing.
A weekly newsletter by Ryan K. ZumMallen | @zoomy575m
HAPPY RACE DAY, especially to the Petersen Museum here in L.A. for its illuminating post on Cliff Hall and his self-made car — the Corwin. I had never heard of this! The story is fascinating. Check out the post and let me know if you stop into the museum and see it!
HEY THERE, subscribers. You may remember that previously, this newsletter died. Well, to get the obvious out of the way, it’s back. There are a few reasons for this: our launch of Victoria Scott’s radical new book which is available now, and my recent departure from Edmunds.com after a delightful three-year run.
I’m also working on a new book! I’m excited to reveal more over the coming weeks and months. For now? Please send us a like, subscribe or share to help us build. Some of you have even donated U.S. currency recently (thank you!). However you choose to support, it means the world. I’m excited to keep cooking up stories for you to enjoy.
And now, here’s this week’s top article.
NASCAR’s L.A. Takeover
THERE WAS A genuine buzz in the air around Los Angeles leading up to the NASCAR race here last weekend. People were constantly bringing it up, asking if others were going, and excitedly recounting their experiences from last year.
So I jumped at the last-minute chance to hitch along with a friend and check things out for myself. It’s called the Clash at the Coliseum — basically a super-short track built on top of the USC football field at the historic L.A. Coliseum. And I mean historic. At various times the Coliseum has also hosted the Rams, Raiders, Chargers, Lakers and even the Kings (that’s hockey). Oh yeah, and the Olympics.
Typically you need space for racing. NASCAR at the Coliseum is like watching motorsports in a gumball machine. You’re on top of the action and can see every inch of the track. You also get overwhelmed by the sound — NASCAR installed mufflers after too many people complained of eardrum damage last year.
We got there to watch two early heats compete to fill out the field. We even got a performance from LA icons Cypress Hill. The highlight of the day might have been watching the FOX broadcasting team staring at this NASCAR rap concert in disbelief.
The word everyone kept using is “spectacle,” and there’s no question that the Clash fit that bill. Fireworks, and music-spinning DJs wearing what felt like ironic Caterpillar and Old Spice racing suits. There were several Ricky Bobby impersonators.
Frankly it bordered on mockery. Stock car culture has a storied history; but it’s foreign to SoCal. It was definitely fun! Lots of people, including NASCAR superfan and motorsports journalist Alanis King, had a blast and reveled in the party atmosphere. NASCAR has no doubt noticed that efforts to humanize and spice up Formula One and IndyCar have seen huge success — I can’t blame them for going the extra mile to reach new fans. And hey, at least there weren’t any Confederate flags.
But it’s still a race, after all. And it did feel like the action got lost in the shuffle. NASCAR moved the start time back to 5:00pm this year. Combined with a halftime show from rapper Wiz Khalifa, where the cars took a break and just sat there on the infield, that significantly dropped the ambient temperature.
Look Mr. Khalifa, I love Black And Yellow as much as anyone. But combine cold race cars with cold tires and a cold racetrack, and add 27 drivers without the aid of downforce because the cars are moving so slowly on a tiny course, and you get lots of late spinouts. The second half of racing was full of them. One driver after another lost their rear end, causing the safety car to come out for a caution. One lap — caution. Two laps — caution. Two more laps — caution. Over and over again.
I’m all about making the event an event. Make it inclusive, adapt to the audience, and give them something to remember. That’s paramount these days and I’ve written extensively on the topic, whether it’s Luftgekühlt, Gridlife, Radwood or any other phenomenon that emphasizes lifestyle and experience over automotive purity.
On the other hand, you still have to deliver on what you promise. You still have to nail the actual cars aspect. I felt like NASCAR forgot that part. In fact, they actively detracted from it.
I had a blast at the Clash and would totally go back. You ask me, only small adjustments are needed. The friend that I came with, though? The one who devours every Drive to Survive episode and texts me nonstop during F1 races? He got bored and left early. Maybe keep him in mind next time.
WANT TO SEE more of my writing on cars? Click the link below to buy a signed copy of my book, Slow Car Fast, available now. If you’ve already torn through it, check out our other titles like The Stainless Steel Carrot and Postcards From the End of the World.
Culture
YOU ALL KNOW I support high-quality performance parts for enthusiasts. But recently one introduced a carbon fiber hood prop. For $1,000. In other words, an “inanimate carbon rod,” which immediately brought an old Simpsons joke to mind:
I’ve also been really active on Instagram lately. Here are just some of the Reels you should check out on the Carrara Media page:
Highlights from the Illest car show / dog show in El Segundo recently.
An introduction to the soymilk shop paying tribute to a car culture icon.
A trailer for Postcards! Very proud of this flip-through for our new title.
A recap of the AutoConduct retail shop opening and its awesome merch.
Up-close tour of the ultra rare Mugen Honda Prelude at that opening.
Some of the gorgeous, dropped, vintage Mercedes models from SoCal shows.
Quick clips from the NASCAR Clash event and all its shenanigans.
Visual excerpt from our interview below with many of the cars he mentions.
I’m really proud of these because I’m shooting, editing and posting each one with the thought that you’ll find them as cool as I do. Please support by liking, commenting and sharing. You beautiful monsters, you.
Ask A Millennial! Brian Jannusch
I MET BRIAN at the VIP opening of the AutoConduct retail shop in downtown L.A. last week. (The shop is carrying Slow Car Fast and lots of other great stuff, so check it out!) But I’d been following Brian for a long time already. He’s the sales director at Top Rank Importers, famous for bringing prime examples of coveted foreign models to the states — he sold the car in this photo. His insights and thoughts on the collector car market are worth their weight in gold, and align with much of what I’ve written about in the book, newsletters and elsewhere for years. Please enjoy.
A lot of blue-chip cars, those owners gate-kept them. I was always told Porsches are for this type of person — go buy something else. After I got told that enough times, I did. I found something else. You found an E30, you found a Miata, you found a Skyline GT-R and you learned to love that car because that’s what you got. And now that generation wants to sell those cars but I’m like ‘Remember, you told me that this wasn’t the car for me.’ That’s where a lot of the Japanese tuner car market fits in. We all agree a Ferrari is pretty cool but it’s not a car most of us are going to have. So what’re you gonna get? You get another enthusiast driver car that you can make fast or work on or maybe you get something that’s pretty cheap and turn it into your idea of what you want.
I don’t think the blue chip car market lends itself very well to that younger generation. The writing is on the wall. You go to Barrett-Jackson and, I’m sure there are still people that want to buy a Model A or a GTO, but that demographic ages out. When all of a sudden there are no more of those older guys buying those cars, Barrett-Jackson either stops selling cars or they find newer cars that appeal to younger markets.
You look at some of the results, some surprisingly low numbers for blue-chip collectors and some surprisingly high numbers for the Toyota Supras. I remember talking to a guy at the Built By Legends R32 GT-R who said, ‘What do one of these run? $20,000-30,000?” And I was like put a zero after that. He’s like there’s no way. The guy couldn’t believe it. And it sold! Same thing with the [R33 GT-R] 400R, we sold that for over a million dollars. People just were in disbelief — until it sells. There’s been a lot of traditional collector cars with established value but the time now is when we’re going to establish the value of future cars.
I didn’t grow up in the ‘50s and get my driver’s license when the Mustang was coming out. I don’t aspire to own that car. The cars I saw on the wall were the 997 Turbo, the Mark IV Supra, those were the cars that to me. Now that I have the money to do it, guess what I own? I want the Fast & Furious cars and to be honest with you, if I ever have a kid some day, he’s probably going to want a Hellcat. That’s the next thing, and that doesn’t make any of us wrong.
Amen.
Auction Block
BUSY WEEK in auctions! Like we said last week, Barrett-Jackson had a wild time in Scottsdale. According to Sports Car Market the auction topped $182 million in just a few days. That’s a lot of Supras!
This week:
RM Sotheby’s is offering a Sterling Moss edition Mercedes-McLaren SLR in a private sale with no reserve. What a bizarre, futuristic mid-2000s relic.
Sotheby’s is also selling a 1-of-10 Pagani Zonda R which just cannot be accurately described by the English language — you have to see this thing.
But what I’m really watching is this Mitsubishi Pajero Evo on Bring A Trailer. I love these goofballs so much. Even though it’ll go for approximately 1/100th of a Zonda or SLR, it’s giving serious energy. Go little Evo!
Elsewhere, it sure looks like someone is using Cars And Bids to flip a brand-new Corvette Z06 for a premium. The seller, a YouTuber who bought the car in November, drove just 1,000 miles. Own the car or don’t, buddy.
And Finally…
THE 2023 CALENDAR is out for Gridlife, the homegrown racing-concert-camping weekend touring the country. Put me down for Laguna Seca in October. Hell yeah.
Drive hard and be safe. Black Lives Matter.
Want your event included? Shoot me a note with subject line “Race Day” at ryan@carrarabooks.com.
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Awesome overview—you've given me plenty of things to check out today. This line killed me: "Typically you need space for racing. NASCAR at the Coliseum is like watching motorsports in a gumball machine."
I tried to watch it, I really did…but heats and pauses and all that made it tough to follow. The other traditional aspect of NASCAR's success is that it's perfect for TV—big timeslot, plenty of commercial breaks (while cars are still circulating, albeit slowly/under caution), and a sense there's always some kind of on-track action.
The opposite to the Clash would be something like the '4 hours of Willow Springs', where there are close to no spectators, and nothing really happening onsite besides a bunch of loud cars tearing through the desert. In person it'd suck, but viewing at home? I bet it'd be an epic, action-filled race.