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NASCAR’s Gordon: No need to change Fontana track

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A reported proposal by Auto Club Speedway to raise the corner banking and make other changes to the two-mile Fontana track drew a wary response from some NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers today.

‘There’s nothing wrong with the race track out there,’ four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon said before today’s qualifying for Sunday’s Cup race at Kansas Speedway. The series moves to Auto Club Speedway the following Sunday for the Pepsi 500, and Gordon is a three-time winner at the Fontana track.

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‘I think it’s a great track,’ he said. ‘If they’re not packing the stands, that’s not it, maybe it’s something else.’

The Times reported this week that the speedway, which has been looking for ways to make the racing closer and sell out the 92,000-seat track, proposed raising the banking to 23 degrees from 14 and narrowing the track in certain sections.

But the track’s owner, International Speedway Corp., has yet to take any action on the plan -- which would cost between $23 million and $30 million -- due to the weak economy, sources familiar with the proposal told The Times.

Driver Ryan Newman said he didn’t expect the track to be altered, but added that ‘a 23-degree banking, 2-mile racetrack would be way too fast.’

Indeed, driver Kasey Kahne said that “if you were to bank it [further], more than likely you’d have to do some type of restrictors, I would think.” He was referring to the carburetor restrictor plates that NASCAR mandates at its two superspeedways, Daytona and Talladega, to cap speeds in the interest of safety.

Kahne, also a past winner at Auto Club Speedway in 2006, said “I kind of like how [the track] is now. It’s a bit boring at times” because cars tend to get spread out on the track, but “for a driver, it’s a pretty neat track because it’s technical,” meaning drivers must be “precise” going around the speedway to run near the front.

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--Jim Peltz in Kansas City, Kan.

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