A thread of random thoughts sparked by Tuesday's bombshell from The Athletic that @ACSUpdates, once hailed as the vanguard of racetrack construction during the auto racing boom times of the go-go ‘90s, soon will be transformed by #nascar into Martinsville with a dash of Bristol. Maybe it’s because I watched it rise from a literal slag heap of toxic waste, but I still struggle to wrap my head around the arc of history in Fontana.

It started as the most Penske Perfect of palatial speedways and gradually became the most maligned track in NASCAR.