NASCAR’s Saturday announcement to move up the highly anticipated Clash at the Coliseum race took many by surprise. While some expressed excitement over the news, others had a different perspective. Regardless of their reactions, a common theme emerged from their comments — everyone is adapting.
Here are their stories:
Ford Mustang driver Todd Gilliland was excited for the decisions NASCAR made on Saturday. Moving up the race means more day for him to prepare for the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s biggest race of the year.
“I feel pretty nervous,” Gilliland said. “We’ve studied a lot of stuff, and you want to be a part of the 23 guys that are ready to start this race. It’s just our first one back, so probably a little bit more nervous than I should be, but it’s all part of it. It’s a good opportunity to get back into things.”
Gilliland advanced from the qualifying round to the main race but crashed out 71 laps in.
Eric Rodriguez and Rosie Gnazzo made the journey from Pennsylvania. Despite poor weather and the race possibly being canceled, they were looking forward to being part of the historic day. “It’s crazy overwhelming.” Rodriguez said.
“We’re blessed that we were able to make it in and actually be able to see it for tonight,” Gnazzo added.
Michael and Deborah Yates made the trip from Oregon. From the jump, they were ready to see how the race would play out.
“I’ve been a NASCAR fan forever,” Michael said.
“On the plane right down from Oregon, there’s a bunch of people on the flight that were coming down,” Deborah added.
They planned multiple events on their trip, but the race made them modify their schedule, and they had to leave to attend a family event.
Michael was upset that he missed out on this year’s event: “I didn’t set my DVR for three extra hours, so I’m not going to see any of it.”
Christopher John “CJ” Woliver, a social media producer for FOX Sports, said he anticipated that schedule changes would happen. The biggest challenge for FOX was TV scheduling.
“It was supposed to be on Fox, but now it’s going to be on FS1,” Woliver said. “There’s a lot of moving parts right now, but everybody knows where to do, where to be and what to do and where to go. We’re ready to go.”
Kaitlyn Kumar, the Chief Engineer of USC Racing Club and her team were excited to attend the NASCAR event, after being granted VIP passes to go behind the scenes to meet racing team staff and technicians.
“It’s absolutely thrilling,” Kumar said. “It’s so rare you get a chance to get a backstage pass and really see how these cars are made.”
Moving up the race means Kumar has to get her team together faster.
“It’s definitely all very last minute,” she said. “I’m trying to distribute tickets to the rest of the team so that they can still attend this event.”