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Zach’s Turn: iRacing Plays Pivotal Role in Clash Success

NASCAR Clash Coliseum

(Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)

Inside the storied walls of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum sits a quarter-mile racetrack, built solely for a one-off exhibition short-track race for the NASCAR Cup Series in downtown L.A.

The idea would have felt absurd any time before 2020, before any mention of COVID-19 threatened to halt the world, let alone the sport. But NASCAR today is not the NASCAR of the last five decades – or even the last five years.

The majority of the credit lies with people like NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation Ben Kennedy and Patrick Rogers, the sport’s vice president of marketing, for being willing to think outside the box and turn a previously unthinkable decision into a reality that comes to fruition Sunday night (Feb. 6).