Fontana

California always makes me yawn, and the race that was supposed to happen today wasn't any different. To recap:

- it's rained for the past few days in Southern California, so NASCAR postponed the Busch - er, Nationwide Series race 'til today, with a planned start of one hour after the finish of the Winston- er, Nextel - oops, s'cuse me, Sprint Cup race. Which would put it starting, at best, around 8 p.m. EST. (Um...?) Then, of course, the rain continued until this afternoon. The Cup race didn't go green until dinner time, so who knows what's going to happen with the Nationwide race...

- ...because on Lap 21, Casey Mears lost it in a corner, smacking the wall, taking out Dale Jr. (grr......) and bringing out the red flag. Now, more than an hour later, they're finally firing the cars up again, but it's getting cloudy again and it's almost time for me to flip over to the Oscars. I hate California.

So, what can we salvage from today? We got even more evidence that Fontana is a crappy place to hold a race. I've never understood why such a car-crazy culture as Southern California can't sustain a NASCAR race. ESPN.com's Ryan McGee had a nice article this week about California Speedway's woes - bad scheduling (two races a year? Las Vegas a week from now?), bad location. NASCAR ran just a few miles away at the Ontario Motor Speedway back in the 70s, and that track ended up being torn down because of a lot of the same problems Fontana's having now.

Speaking of scheduling, whose bright idea was it to schedule a race in BFE, Calif., on the same day as the Academy Awards??? NASCAR doesn't understand why the celebs who drop in on other races never show up at Fontana. This would be like me scheduling a fundraiser or something the same weekend of the ACC tournament. In the Triangle. And then not understanding why I couldn't sweet talk Dean Smith or Coach K into making a personal appearance. (But Tom Cruise was there today. Okay.)

We also learned some new words, like "weeper" - the term for a seam that lets groundwater seep up onto the track, where Casey Mears or Denny Hamlin can then run over it at 180 m.p.h. and crash into the wall (and into Dale Jr.). I learned a new word, too - "ardilla terrestre." With apologies to Juan Pablo Montoya, that is, in fact, the Spanish term for "gopher." Hey, I don't know every word in my language either. No worries, Juan Pablo.

Yeah, Fox is still awfully proud of that gopher cam. There are few things more excruciating in this life than trying to watch a bunch of TV producers scramble to fill a rain delay. Fox's big brainstorm today was to go around asking drivers what they thought Fox should name the little cartoon gopher in the graphic that accompanies the gopher cam footage. As Jimmie Johnson said, "You guys must be really bored." (I lol'ed, and forgot for a second that I hate Jimmie Johnson.)

The "car of tomorrow" (or today, technically) really sucks. The cars have run 30 laps, have sat in chilly rain for hours and are still overheating. I don't understand the point of that slanty grill design.

It's fashionable for us fans to bash the NASCAR officials, and they deserve it sometines. But I didn't envy them today. They had to decide whether to keep postponing the start time - pissing off fans at the track and watching at home - or put the cars out on a track where water is still weeping up from underground. There's no good call there. But did you see that one safety crew guy jump up on what used to be the hood of Sam Hornish's car when it caught on fire? I hope those guys get paid well. But somehow I doubt it.

This came up on ESPN.com's in-race message board today - we used to call the Cup drivers who moonlighted in the Busch Series "Buschwackers," which has a nice ring to it. (I swear, no sport can match NASCAR for slang.) So, now what do we call them? Nationwidewackers? That makes no sense. How 'bout just "wackers"? It sounds cool. But remember, that's coming from someone who did her undergrad thesis on communication within the NASCAR subculture, so maybe I'm biased toward language that has a little history behind it.

Okay, it's raining in California again. About 60 miles west of the track, the Oscars are getting ready to go green. Next week we've got Las Vegas, a track I also hate. But after that, the schedule gets good, so I'm still pumped.