Automobile Racing

Four people were arrested early Wednesday and more than 300 were ticketed in a crackdown on illegal street racing in the San Fernando Valley, police said. Capping weeks of investigation, a team of 27 officers, six reserve officers, three Explorer Scouts and eight members of a citizens volunteer surveillance team barricaded hundreds of mostly young people on Plummer Street just as races were about to begin, said Lt. Joe Eddy of Devonshire Division.

Ascot Park, the busiest dirt race track in America for 33 years, comes to the finish line Thursday. The 50th annual Turkey Night Grand Prix for United States Auto Club midget cars figures to be the last of more than 5,000 main events held since the track opened at 182nd and Vermont Avenue in 1957.

Ivan Stewart had some advice for the record 331 entries who would run the 25th Tecate/SCORE Baja 1000 off-road race from Ensenada to La Paz last week, and youngsters were wise to listen. Stewart, 47, has been doing this as long as there has been dirt. Every third year the race is run to La Paz, rather than on a course looping out and into Ensenada. "Just try to get to La Paz," Stewart said.

Collene Campbell arrived in court Thursday wearing the St. Christopher medal her brother, slain racing legend Mickey Thompson, wore during his races. It lay over a diamond necklace her mother gave her on her deathbed 11 years ago, asking Campbell not to take it off until her brother's killer was brought to justice. On Thursday, after nearly 19 years, 74-year-old Campbell was released from those mystic bonds.

You can trace the term "hot rod" -- short for "hot roadster" -- back to 1939, when it was used to describe a sort of speedy vehicle certain Southern Californians were constructing out of factory-issue Detroit automobiles. These outlaw enthusiasts would take a '32 Ford V-8 roadster, say, and remove its fenders (and anything else that might be giving it extra weight), trick it up and produce a fairly decent-looking and extremely fast car.

It sounds foolish to say that things haven't changed in the last 50 years, yet in some ways they haven't. When Wally Parks and friends formed what became the National Hot Rod Assn. in 1951, one of their objectives was to get street-racing teenagers off the streets and into a controlled environment where they could express their need for speed and bragging rights without endangering their lives and the lives of others.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Southern California a year ago was hampered by rain that caused numerous delays and frustrated fans, drivers and track officials. Now the sport and the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana are about to be tested again, this time by an economic storm -- and a big question is how many stock car racing fans will weather it by showing up.

About the Project This is the result of six months of research and reporting by Tribune Auto Race Writer Ed Hinton, with help from staffers at other Tribune papers, among them Darin Esper of the Los Angeles Times. It sheds new light on the decline of traditional fatalism among race drivers and the need for more research and action to prevent the violent deaths the sport has come to accept.

Auto Club Speedway, hoping to boost excitement for the Fontana track's title-contending NASCAR Sprint Cup race this fall, said Wednesday it would shorten the race to 400 miles from 500. The race, which had been called the Pepsi 500, will now be the Pepsi Max 400, reflecting both the shorter distance and a different soft drink marketed by title sponsor Pepsi. Set to run Oct. 10, the race is the fourth of 10 races in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup late-season championship playoff.

Late in 1986, stock car driver Tim Richmond was hospitalized for pneumonia. But, as he soon discovered, that was secondary to a more serious illness: He was diagnosed with AIDS, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Richmond, 31 at the time, did not want to quit racing. And he did not. He was named NASCAR's driver of the year for 1986, and planned to continue driving for as long as his strength would last. But it was not AIDS that knocked him out of racing.

Danica Patrick proved this much Saturday: Her desire to drive stock cars is not a novelty act. Despite a collision with another car that briefly dropped her deep in the field and her unfamiliarity with the famed "drafting" at Daytona International Speedway, Patrick drove an impressive race and stormed back to finish sixth in her first stock car race. "I had so much fun in a race car today," an ebullient Patrick told a media swarm that greeted her in the garage after the race.

How will she do? It's the overarching question here Saturday when Danica Patrick, who gained fame as a driver of sleek Indy-style cars, makes her debut driving 3,000-pound stock cars. With the full force of her promotional machine behind her, Patrick starts 12th Saturday in a 43-car race in the ARCA Series at the high-banked Daytona International Speedway. ARCA is a minor league series separate from the much larger NASCAR, and Patrick plans to quickly jump to NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series either next weekend here or Feb. 20 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

Jeff Gordon knows he's running out of time to win a fifth NASCAR championship. Gordon, the onetime "Boy Wonder" who captured his four titles in NASCAR's premier series between 1995 and 2001, hasn't won another since the series became the Sprint Cup Series and adopted the "Chase for the Cup" title playoff format in 2004. It hasn't been for lack of trying. Gordon finished second in the point standings in 2007 and third last year, but he's had to watch as Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson won an unprecedented four consecutive championships from 2006 through last season.

Auto Club Speedway, hoping to boost excitement for the Fontana track's title-contending NASCAR Sprint Cup race this fall, said Wednesday it would shorten the race to 400 miles from 500. The race, which had been called the Pepsi 500, will now be the Pepsi Max 400, reflecting both the shorter distance and a different soft drink marketed by title sponsor Pepsi. Set to run Oct. 10, the race is the fourth of 10 races in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup late-season championship playoff.

When Danica Patrick became a rookie sensation in 2005 in what is now the Izod IndyCar Series, she capped the year with a race in Southern California. Five years later, IndyCar's most popular driver might make her NASCAR stock-car racing debut at the same location. Patrick, who recently announced plans to try stock-car racing on a limited basis next year in NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series, said Thursday that she plans to enter the Feb. 20 Nationwide race at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

It's official: Danica Patrick will take on NASCAR's good ol' boys. Patrick, who became one of the most recognizable figures in sports as a driver of Indy-type race cars, announced Tuesday that she will also try her hand at NASCAR stock-car racing next season. Patrick, 27, said she would drive a No. 7 Chevrolet in a "limited number" of races in NASCAR's Nationwide Series -- the second-tier race circuit below its premier Sprint Cup Series -- in a car owned by JR Motorsports, a team co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR's most popular driver.

It will take some time for the gravity of what Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team accomplished at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday to truly sink in for the men who made it happen. But Johnson knows it's big. Johnson, 34, won an unprecedented fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship. He joined Jeff Gordon, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt as the only drivers to win at least four titles and broke a tie with Cale Yarborough, who won three straight championships.

No offense against the Lone Star State, but Jimmie Johnson couldn't wait to stop talking about Texas. Johnson's march to a record fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title was rudely interrupted last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. An early crash left Johnson with a 38th-place finish and enabled teammate Mark Martin to slash Johnson's lead in the championship standings to 73 points from 184. Now Johnson hopes to at least keep, or even widen, his remaining lead in Sunday's Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, the next-to-last race in NASCAR's 10-race Chase for the Cup title playoff.

Jimmie Johnson's drive to history took a hard hit against the wall and Kyle Busch ran out of gas trying to complete an unprecedented NASCAR trifecta. Kurt Busch won at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, taking over the lead with 2 1/2 laps left when his younger brother's car suddenly slowed on the backstretch after leading 232 of the 334 laps. Johnson, the series points leader, wrecked on the third lap. His crew needed more than an hour to basically rebuild his No. 48 Chevrolet, but he returned to finish 38th -- 129 laps behind Kurt Busch.

On a day when no caution flags came out, Dario Franchitti reigned supreme over the IndyCar series again. Franchitti emerged victorious from one of the closest points races in series history Saturday, winning the season-ending Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida in the first caution-free IRL race ever. He used a significantly different fuel strategy than did the other two title contenders, Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe , and was rewarded with his second championship in three years.