Walking through the pits Saturday morning the first thing that caught my eye was the gargantuan new grandstand.  The sheer size & scale of the thing floored me.

 This monstrous structure dominates the pit area like a NASCAR-bred Moloch.  The top row luxury skyboxes serve the corporate elite.  At the WCC, the empty aluminum bench seating below reflects sunlight & heat forming a blinding solar oven.  Not a problem with sellout NASCAR crowds!
 

Everything at the now NASCAR-owned Sears Point is scaled towards tending to the tens of thousands of free- spending stock car fans who throng to NASCAR  events.  The familiar bridges that once crossed the course near Start/Finish are gone.  At enormous expense, NASCAR has replaced them with tunnels.  Not a bad

Where once there were trees and a natural hillside there's now an enormous terraced seating structure. It's an artificial environment, but it provides excellent viewing of the entire "esses". I hate seeing the modern sports world devour another icon of the "Old Days", but considering the sheer numbers attending today's Winston Cup races, the changes aren't all for the worse.