Nighttime’s the Right Time

After experimenting with night racing on a superspeedway a year ago, California Speedway and NASCAR officials apparently liked what they saw.

All three Labor Day weekend races, climaxed by the Nextel Cup Sony HD 500 next Sunday, will finish after dark, but with the two-mile track floodlit with enough wattage, say track personnel, to light a residential street running from Fontana to Oklahoma City. Also enough to run 200-mph stock cars inches apart around a D-shaped track with corners banked 14 degrees.

A Grand National West race, the Relocate Here 200, presented by the County of San Bernardino, will get things started Friday night at 8. On Saturday, the Ameriquest 300 will spotlight the Busch series, with Martin Truex Jr. trying to pad his lead and give car owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. something to smile about.

With half a dozen drivers scrambling to get into the 10-driver Chase for the Championship, Sunday night’s Sony HD 500 should be one of the most entertaining of the 26 qualifying races NASCAR uses to determine the 10 finalists for its championship chase.

Both the Saturday and Sunday night races will start in daylight, the Busch at 5:35 and the Nextel Cup at 5:10, with both finishing in darkness. That was the pattern used in the speedway’s first evening venture last year, when Elliott Sadler, driving the No. 38 M&M; Ford, won the inaugural “Finish Under the Lights” 500.

“We’re California dreamin’ tonight,” Sadler said after the race.

“I drove my heart out. When the sun went down, man, we just took off like a rocket. The lighting system was perfect.”

The victory also gave the Virginia driver the impetus he needed to get into the Chase, where he finished ninth.

To commemorate his win, Sadler, with race fans looking on, will be inducted into the California Speedway “Walk of Fame” on Saturday at 11 a.m. The ceremony, during which Sadler will put his footprints, signature and a bronze placard with his likeness into concrete, will take place at Gate 12.

With only one qualifying race remaining after Fontana, at Richmond International Raceway on Sept. 10, before the final 10-race shootout, the Sony HD 500 will carry added significance for those drivers on the bubble -- the ones barely in the top 10 and those within striking distance of the top 10.

The race will also be the final Nextel Cup race at Fontana for two NASCAR legends, Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin. Both are former winners who have announced that this is their final season.

Wallace won in 2001 after leading a race-high 95 laps. Martin won in 1998 with a record 165 laps led. He also won the Busch series Stater Bros. 300 last February.

Tom Lasorda, the Hall of Fame former Dodger manager, will serve as honorary starter for the Sony HD 500. Josh Duhamel, who stars in the television show “Las Vegas,” will be grand marshal.

Although Nextel Cup gets most of the attention, the two support races could be just as entertaining.

Adrian Fernandez, who won two open-wheel races at California Speedway, a Champ Car 500 in 1999 and an Indy Racing League 400 in 2004, will make his NASCAR oval racing debut in the Busch race.

Fernandez has driven in one Busch race, at Mexico City in March, where he finished 10th on a road course. He will be driving a Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports with Jimmie Johnson as his teammate.

“I hope that with the experienced team that I have and the friendship I have with Jeff [Gordon] and Jimmie Johnson, I will be able to adapt myself quickly to the car,” said the 42-year-old driver who also owns his own team, Fernandez Racing, with Tom Anderson, that runs the IRL series with Kosuke Matsuura as the driver.

Truex, last year’s Busch champion, will be going for his seventh victory this season in hopes of extending his lead over Clint Bowyer, Reed Sorenson and Carl Edwards.

The Relocate Here 200 on Friday will showcase a number of West Coast favorites such as Steve Portenga, winner of a GN West race at Irwindale Speedway last month; Andrew Lewis of Corona, rookie-of-the-year leader; Mike Duncan of Bakersfield, the defending series champion; David Gilliland of Riverside, Tim Woods III of Chino Hills and Andrew Myers of Huntington Beach, as well as former Indy car driver Sarah Fisher.