NASCAR Clash is coming to the Coliseum in 2022

In a long-standing break with tradition, NASCAR will not have the first event of its 2022 season in Daytona Beach, Fla., but instead in Southern California. In an even bigger break with protocol, it won’t be at a traditional racing facility but inside the L.A. Memorial Coliseum.

NASCAR announced Tuesday that the Clash, an exhibition of top drivers, will be held on a temporary quarter-mile asphalt track inside the Coliseum on Feb. 6, two weeks before the Daytona 500. The last time the first event of the year was not at the Daytona International Speedway was in 1981, when it was at the road course on Riverside International Raceway, which was closed in 1989.

Details of how the race will be run are still being worked out, but the event, which will have races over two days, is set.

“It’s a one-of-a kind event,” said Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s senior vice president of strategy and innovation. “We’ve never done anything like this before in our sports history and can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.”

It might be held more than once as the deal between NASCAR and the Coliseum is for one year with two one-year options.

The Clash, which in the past has had a purse of $1 million, is an exhibition that has taken on many different forms since it started in 1979. This year it was on the Daytona road course with two segments of 15 and 20 laps. In previous years, on the speedway portion of Daytona, it was three segments totaling 75 laps. It’s an invitation-only race.

Kennedy said that because the track will be only a quarter-mile, there will be a “maximum of 25 cars, but we’ll probably be closer to 20 or so.

“There will be eight to 10 pit stalls [in the infield] and it will be noncompetitive,” Kennedy said. “If someone has a flat tire or minor repairs, they can come down pit road and service it. We probably won’t have live pit stops just because of the logistics and the footprint.

“We’re still working on laps but … we’ll probably look a little different than our traditional Clash format. But we really want to make something that is engaging and exciting and can also create some additional content on the weekend.”

The race will be broadcast after the NFL Pro-Bowl on FS1.

The event is not going to disrupt the Coliseum event schedule, according to Joe Furin, general manager of the Coliseum.

“It’s our downtime, but the stadium will not be available from the beginning of the year until the end of February,” Furin said. L.A.’s professional rugby club, the Giltinis, will have to adjust its schedule near the end of February as the track is removed.

“It is going to have to be built from scratch each and every time,” Furin said. “You put down a protective layer over the grass, not to save the grass but to protect sprinklers and other foreign material, such as rocks and gravel, from getting in the dirt base. There will be a banked 5 to 7 feet of compacted dirt and then a couple inches of asphalt.”