Racing interest out west limited

As GM and Chrysler drive around Washington soliciting more taxpayer billions, the NASCAR boys circle an unremarkable two-mile oval in California seeking a fatter audience share.

It could be a sputtering race to a hazy finish line, which qualifies as cause for depression.

The whole world economy has been turned upside down, and some days nothing makes much sense. A share of General Electric stock costs less than some of these new light bulbs. Pretty soon, a decal on an independent car might cost less than a GE share.

In one convulsive year, racing drastically changed visual images. The 2008 look: a gleaming Car of Tomorrow, guaranteed to cut costs and equalize opportunity. The 2009 look: a gigantic, old-fashioned funnel turned upside down, with guys trying to pour gas through the little end.

NASCAR opened the season launching fireworks in the Daytona rain, a soggy corporate celebration for an accident of meteorological fate. The rain started right after Matt Kenseth passed Elliott Sadler and blocked Kevin Harvick. The engines hadn't even cooled off before NASCAR pulled the plug and declared the Daytona 500 done after 380 miles.

The decision avoided a dreary delay of several hours, and that's the best-case scenario. The instant call also chopped off the most intensive viewing period, the final 100 miles. Consequently, TV ratings dropped about 10 percent compared to last year -- still ahead of the World Series and Kentucky Derby but slightly behind the Final Four and NBA Finals. About 20 percent of TVs in use watched the race, with significantly larger shares in the three hottest markets: leader Greenville, S.C., followed by the Triad and Dayton, Ohio.

You don't see Fontana or any other California town real high on the charts, yet that's where the Sprint Cup circuit turns today for sustained energy and another late start (6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. at the site). Fontana, which opened in 1997, represents another stab at urban marketing, the plan that repelled so many longtime fans, shoved the Southern 500 from Labor Day weekend to Mother's Day and eventually prompted boss Brian France to declare a back-to-basics campaign.

Fontana's crowds haven't matched expectations or come close to the 92,000-seat capacity. Promoters estimated the Labor Day crowd last year as 70,000. You can reasonably assume that the estimate was not low, a supposition supported by irrefutable evidence that NASCAR moved the Labor Day race to October and plugged Atlanta into the gap. Meanwhile, Darlington awaits the return of its traditional date, but that would require NASCAR to go back to basic decency.

Smaller Fontana crowd expected

Fontana is 40 miles east of Los Angeles, but a mile rarely equals a minute in that traffic, and the cultural connection might remain a bit weak. Fontana is a biker town, the 1948 birthplace of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. Fontana is also quite warm when those Santa Ana winds blow in from the nearby Mojave Desert.

The recession -- California's government is $42 billion in the hole -- represents another ill wind in the racing marketplace. The track, which expects a 10-percent attendance drop, made some late moves to fill seats. Customers who spend $75 at one grocery chain get a free ticket. Promoters reduced the least-desirable seats in low rows from $55 to $35.

Daytona cut the price of back-stretch tickets from $99 to $55, yet many of those seats remained unoccupied throughout the race. Atlanta just created some $17 tickets for its first race, supposedly in tribute to Kenseth's No. 17 car.

Martinsville has announced several price cuts for its March race, including four tickets for $159 (a $41 discount) and even lower charges for individual children and students. The track, with high-end tickets for $77, just lowered the price of remaining back-stretch seats to $25.

Virginian Jeff Burton and several other drivers sound committed to customer service.

"I think that we've been spoiled," Burton said. "I think this is a wakeup call for all of us. We, as drivers, have to find a way to do a better job of interacting with the fans, of including the fans in things. I think we've been on a ferry ride cruising down the river. We're lucky and fortunate we do have millions and million and millions of fans."

Naturally, NASCAR has a commercial promotion. The contest, financed by a mayonnaise manufacturer, will pick a fan of the year from individual photos of fans with the company's products. The jury includes Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will drive the winner around the Concord track and put a decal of the fan's face on his Nationwide Series car. That's the same Junior who wrecked half the potential winners at Daytona and thus managed to irritate even his own supporters.

What an upside-down start, the most-popular driver debuting as a villain.

The series dominator, three-time champ Jimmie Johnson, sliced up the middle finger on his left hand with a kitchen knife while trying to make a wardrobe adjustment during Daytona's 24-hour race in January. He wears three braces, a sheepish smile and a beard -- and still the throngs find little to grab hold of, other than riding with a winner.

Brian Vickers -- the guy Junior smacked to trigger the Big One -- won the Fontana pole and learned an hour later that he needed a new motor, which will drop him to the back of the field.

The field for the first race after the Great American Race breaks down this way: 15 Chevys, eight Fords, seven Dodges and 13 Toyotas. Detroit groans all the way to Washington.

Pontiac is dead, and Dodge ain't feeling too good itself.

■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com.