FONTANA, Calif. (AP) — Auto Club Speedway gives IndyCar drivers every reason to be skittish heading into the season finale.
It’s a fast and wide oval, and Saturday night’s race is just the second 500-miler of the season. Only a quarter of the field has raced before at Fontana, which returned to the IndyCar schedule this season after a seven-year absence.
But the atmosphere is not nearly as tense as it was earlier this season when IndyCar raced at Texas, the first race on an oval track since Dan Wheldon’s fatal accident in last October’s finale at Las Vegas.
Teams reported to Fontana for an 8-hour test session Wednesday confident massive improvements have been made to the formula that was cited as a factor in Wheldon’s accident. A clean race in July at Texas helped ease their concerns.
