NASCAR Fontana Party Scene Infield 2012 Race Day Experience California Auto Club Speedway, PubClub.com!

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NASCAR Fontana Party Scene Infield 2012 Race Day Experience California Auto Club Speedway

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The lifestyle and party scene of NASCAR at Auto Club Speedway from the pre-race concert to the infield. The 2012 race is March 25.

The NASCAR Fontana Experience
Concerts, The Budweiser Block Party & The Infield Scene

The Bud girls must have provided great inspiration to winner Kevin Harvick.

It's not all Lakers, Angeles, Dodgers, UCLA basketball or USC football when it comes to sports in Southern California.

Or even surfing or beach volleyball.

There's also a bit of Southern sweet tea in Southern California, and it's in the form of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. The 2012 race is March 25, with a whole weekend of activities and other events starting the 23rd. Perhaps inspired by the presence of the Bud girls, the Budwieser driver Kevin Harvick won in 2011 and comes in as defending champion. He passed Jimmy Johnson and Kyle Bush the final laps after a restart on the ninth lap.

This is the lone NASCAR event of the year at Fontana. It's also now a 400-mile race, which NASCAR and California Speedway feels is more appealing to the fans than a 500-mile event, although IndyCar will return for its season finale on Sept. 15.

The massive race track – a two-mile oval in the Inland Empire about 45 minutes from downtown Los Angeles – hosts auto racing's premier series and stars. (It used to be twice annually but is now once, in the springtime.) It brings in approximately 100,000 race fans who do exactly what they do in the NASCAR hotbeds of Daytona, Charlotte and Talladega: Watch racin' and drink beer.

Well, there's far more to it than that, quite frankly. This being Southern California there has to be more than the sport itself. There must also be entertainment and a lively scene – a spirited party scene in this case – to bring people in and keep them interested in returning the next time.

Beer-sponsored beauties are part of the scene at California Speedway.

There are, after all, more diversions in this area than there are caution flags at Fontana: Hiking, mountain biking, the beach, the mountains, wine tasting, motorcycle riding through the canyons...

The atmosphere before the race is like a mini concert.

So what does Auto Club (California) Speedway offer as an alternative? It waves the green flag to start a party. Before the races – the next one will be in March 2012, riding on the bumper of NASCAR's signature Daytona 500 – there is a festival atmosphere at the grandstand gates.

People can get in for as cheap as $35. The real deal, tho, is the Budweiser Block Party where, for $99, fans get a ticket to the race, breakfast and lunch on race day plus access to a private Budweiser beer garden. In 2011, it sold out with 1,000 people. In 2012, it is being expanded to hold 1,200.

There's a concert by a name band – ZZ Top, Foreigner, Styx, and Sammy Hagar have performed in the past – that starts at 10:30 in the morning (the race is usually at noon) and it's surrounded by beer stands, food stations, the ever-populr Bud girls who pose for photos both inside and out of the Bud tent, race car show cars where people line up to get their picture made with it, the obligator souvenir stands and even a secondary stage with more live music.

Beer stations, Bud girls and race cars: It's all here for NASCAR.

The Budweiser Clydesdales add to the atmosphere of the event.

Wander under the infield tunnel, walk over the foot bridge and take your photo with the Budweiser Clydesdales, the beer company's famous horse brigade. Stay there long enough and one almost expects a Super Bowl commercial to break out at any moment.

There's plenty of beer beforehand at the track's main gate.

One cool add-on to any ticket is the pit pass, which grants access to the actual NASCAR pits before the race. Understandably, this is a highly desirable addition to the race-day experience. It's even possible to see the driver themselves waking to the introductions before the start of the race. It's like being on the court for a Lakers game and perhaps even giving a high-five to Kobe Bryant.

And you don't have to be Jack Nicholson to do it. Jack of All Trades does nicely here.

THE INFIELD

What's a NASCAR race wihout an infield!?

Ahh, the infield. It's as NASCAR as driver feuds.

This is where motorhomes pull up and spread out to spend the weekend. It's as much social as it is sport, as much everlasting as it is Earnhardt.

At Fontana, there are a couple hundred motorhomes set up in what is part college football tailgate and part Jimmy Buffett concert. There are BBQs, plasma TVs and tiki and other bars set up throughout the area.

And, in the land of the automobile, there are also trams that take infielders from one motorhome party to another. Considering the crowd here, it's kind of like a Southern-fried amusement park, a redneck Universal Studios tour. Anyone who doubts this should simply disembark at Redneck Blvd., and Dale Earnhardt Drive.

It's there, trust us!