Why The Clash in LA is Good For NASCAR: Thoughts and a Recap

For the second time, NASCAR made the trip out west to start the season out in the heart of Los Angeles at the famous Los Angeles Coliseum. When this was first announced for 2022, many fans wondered how would this set up and how this would work. It turned out to be a massive success in its inaugural event, now the question was how would a second go around of this race go.

The main 150-lap race expanded the field to 27 cars this time around, which might have been a leading contributor to why there were more cautions in the race than there were a year ago. Last year’s Clash had only five cautions, while this year’s race had 15, a lot of which occurred in the second half after the Halftime performance by Wiz Khalifa. After the smoke settled and the Olympic torch at the top of the stadium went out, it was Martin Truex Jr capturing the win after going winless and missing the playoffs in 2022. 

“Last year was a pretty rough season for us, with no wins. To come out here and kick it off this way, just really proud of all these guys,” Truex said in his post-race interview. “Tonight was just kind of persevere, not give up and just battle through. And we found ourselves in the right spot at the end. Sometimes they work out your way, sometimes they don’t. Tonight it went our way.”

For Truex, it’s a good start to the season in what was much needed for him. Not to mention there were talks of him retiring last season. Another impressive performance came out of Ryan Preece, who had a racing background that benefited him on the LA Coliseum Circuit. He led for 43 laps in his first race with Stewart Haas Racing until fading to seventh after having a bad fuel pump. Another good showing came from Richard Childress Racing who finished second and third after the long anticipation of Kyle Busch’s debut with the team. Both Busch and Austin Dillon showed great speed as Dillon finished second, and Busch was third. Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson rounded out the top five. Austin Dillon also had a late race run-in with Bubba Wallace as Wallace had the worst end of it, being knocked out of contention to win.

“Obviously, Bubba knocked me through the corner,” Dillon said. “I was going to hit him back. Didn’t mean to turn him like that, but when it gets down to the end, I think everybody knows what’s going on, and that’s what you see at places like this and Bowman Gray Stadium.”

So now that I’ve talked about the race, let’s talk about the idea of the race. Is having a preseason exhibition like this a good idea? Short Answer? Absolutely.

In terms of the longer answer, this is good for NASCAR. To come out to Los Angeles, bring in different kinds of celebrities, but not only that, attract new fans. Both the 2022 and 2023 races have led to attracting a good amount of new fans who haven’t been to a race before. Some have taken to the screens of phones and computers, wondering why NASCAR is doing what they’re doing. They brought in Ice Cube and Pitbull last year to perform and Cypress Hill and Wiz Khalifa this year to attract a new fanbase. Something NASCAR has to do to grow.

NASCAR has its stereotypes and it’s been with the sport for a very long time. A lot of events feature mainly country artists, which there’s nothing wrong with, but it’s good to try and shake things up. Atlanta’s summer race last year had Flo-Rida perform, and as I mentioned we had Cypress Hill and Wiz Khalifa perform this year. It’s also to try and make it more than just seeing a race, but also for entertainment and for a big event. You will see this too with the inaugural Chicago Street Race in July as well. Yeah sure the race this year was quite chaotic, but in the end, it’s still good for NASCAR to shake up the schedule and try new things. It’s a way to bring in new fans to the sport.

With that being said, it’s officially the start of NASCAR’s 75th anniversary and next up is the Great American Race. The Daytona 500 is on February 19th at 2:30 pm EST.