Ryan: Last lap at Fontana raises questions of NASCAR’s past, present and future in SoCal

As NASCAR sets to raze the Garage Mahal built by Roger Penske on a toxic waste dump in Fontana, California, let’s recognize that Paul Oberjuerge saw this coming a quarter-century ago.

When the finishing touches were put on California Speedway, the plaudits overflowed for Penske’s $125 million palace of speed. NASCAR’s premier series had been absent from Southern California for nearly a decade. After tracks failed in nearby Ontario and Riverside, Fontana would be the unlikeliest site for the most proper of returns.

At the first open test on May 5, 1997, Cup teams were greeted by an opulent track built to 21st-century standards.

Cavernous garage bays and spaciously designed pit stalls. Gorgeous, plush suites with panoramic views of the track and San Gabriel Mountains. Top-shelf facilities for the media and even a first-class gym for the drivers.

Everywhere were hallmarks of the “Penske perfect” details – track president Greg Penske had day-to-day oversight of his father’s vision rising from the ruins of the dilapidated Kaiser Steel Mill (once marked by an iconic water tower) – and everyone was ready to proclaim NASCAR’s newfound permanence in Southern California.

All except Oberjuerge, the sports editor of The San Bernardino County Sun whose sharp-edged and incisive newspaper columns were daily must-reads in the Inland Empire for nearly three decades.

In a May 7, 1997 piece titled: “Speedway: Bigger Isn’t Always Better,” Oberjuerge marveled at the mammoth infield that could fit virtually every major stadium in Southern California (“The stands are taller, the distances longer, the logistics Pharaonic”).

He saluted the endless ambition of Roger Penske (“A century ago, men of his ilk built the Panama Canal and laid the