A race track with a crowd of cars and a large archway.

Unprecedented deluge of rain in LA upends NASCAR CLASH

February 9, 2024/Jan Wagner/
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In an historic change of plans for NASCAR — and with only about four hours of advance notice given — the feature races of the 2024 “Busch Light CLASH at The Coliseum” (non-Championship pre-season race) and the “King Taco La Batalla en El Coliseo” (the NASCAR Mexico Series race) were rescheduled from Sunday, February 4 to Saturday due to unprecedented, life-threatening, heavy rain predicted for Sunday in Los Angeles.

The event’s live music, heat races and more were cancelled.

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20240203 — Joey Logano & the press check out the Busch Light Clash at The Coliseum track
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Fans who had bought tickets to attend the races on Sunday were suddenly confronted with no racing that day, and there were hardly any spectators in the grandstands on Saturday. No doubt NASCAR, FOX TV and the vendors, who had bought merchandise to sell on Sunday, suffered big losses.

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Considering the circumstances, by advancing the day of the races NASCAR had made the best out of what was certainly going to be impossible conditions for racing on Sunday. The only thing that NASCAR could have done better would have been to have made this decision earlier, since the weather forecasts had consistently been predicting very bad weather in the LA area for several days in advance.

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In the past two years I’d walked all over the LA Memorial Coliseum venue, checking out not only the immediate area of the racetrack, but also the pits (a few blocks away — since the Coliseum is not nearly large enough to include them), the large vendor areas and more. This year, however, I no longer had enough time to do that.

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The racing was good with plenty of surprises, ‘bumping and banging,’ and not-so-gentle moving of competitors out of the way. Despite the tight confines of such a short track, drivers were still able to move up from the back to the front.

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I had this GREAT vantage point, atop a camera platform, from which to shoot the two feature races.
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Denny Hamlin won the CLASH.

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This year there was also a NASCAR Mexico Series race. Thankfully the rain held off on Saturday night, with just a very light sprinkling of rain during the final laps.

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NASCAR Cup Series’ Daniel Suarez, who used to race in the NASCAR Mexico Series, won this race.

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For results of the 2024 NASCAR Busch Light CLASH at The Coliseum visit nascar.com, and for the King Taco La Batalla en El Coliseo visit https://www.race-monitor.com/Results/Session/8014631.

While I was taking photos from the upper levels of the Coliseum, where I had a bird’s eye view of the racetrack down below, I spotted something unexpected in the distance. To the right of the tall buildings of downtown Los Angeles, at the California Science Center, I noticed what looked like a full-scale mockup of a NASA space shuttle.

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I have been covering San Diego’s Fleet Science Center for over 20 years but I had never been to the California Science Center, so I walked over to check it out more closely. I learned that what I’d seen was the actual Space Shuttle Endeavor, which had just been moved from its temporary home inside the museum.

A large orange space shuttle is under construction.

Earlier in the week a crane had lifted it up and set it down upright amongst two solid rocket boosters and an external fuel tank. A photographer told me that over the next two years an incredible exhibit will be built there. Supposedly J.J. Abrams will be helping to create an exhibit which will begin with visitors watching a movie of the Endeavor lifting off. The movie screen will then be raised to reveal the actual space shuttle, complete with flames and smoke emerging from its rocket’s engines.

A large orange spaceship is under construction in a city.

Admission to the galleries is FREE. Since Sunday’s racing had been cancelled, I spent the day at the California Science Center. I look forward to sharing some of the photos that I took there in a future column. In the meantime, visit the California Science Center at https://californiasciencecenter.org/.

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News reports that began on Sunday showed the devastation caused by the heavy rains. There was flooding, as well as landslides. People died. On my drive home south from Los Angeles on Sunday evening in heavy rain, I could barely see the lane markings on the freeways. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported a three-day total of 8.51 inches of rain for “LOS ANGELES DOWNTOWN USC, CA.”

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Copyright © 2024 by Jan Wagner – AutoMatters & More #826

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Jan Wagner

2 Comments

  1. David Sperry on February 17, 2024 at 11:19 am

    Hey Jan. I’ve viewed your columns on the NASCAR races at The Coliseum over the past few years, and they continue to be spectacular, rain or not. Racing on Saturday, not Sunday, was a huge decision for the organizers, and there was no perfect solution.

    Your shots of The Coliseum are amazing, even surreal. I always think that if Aliens dropped in on the races, they would believe that they had found an ancient Grecian or Roman sporting event, with cars instead of chariots.

    Reply
    • Jan Wagner on February 17, 2024 at 12:40 pm

      Hi David,
      Thank you for your entertaining, insightful comments. I always look forward to reading them.
      Jan

      Reply

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