The Auto Club 500, held in Fontana, California, is a 500 mile-long NASCAR event held at that locale's Auto Club Speedway. The race venue is a two-mile long superspeedway that can hold up to 92,000 when it's configured for NASCAR racing. NASCAR holds two races in a single season at the Speedway, which is somewhat unusual in that very few courses on the circuit get more than one race in the year. That's because the racing here is super hot, a fact which helps propel Auto Club 500 ticket sales to new heights every year.

The inaugural race was held on June 22, 1997. Back then it was called the California 500, and it featured 21 lead changes among over a dozen different drivers. Current NASCAR racing legend Jeff Gordon won that first race, passing another current legend -- Mark Martin -- with 11 laps to go. Gordon himself has taken top honors at this race three times. The Auto Club 500 has quickly established a nice tradition of great racing, which is something that helps to convince fans to snap up large blocks of Auto Club 500 tickets.

Current Daytona 500 champion Matt Kenseth has also taken the title at this race on three different occasions. Jeff and Matt are the only drivers in NASCAR that have one this particular race three times. Once held in May for much of its history, NASCAR moved the event to February back in 2005, which gives fans of stock car racing to all world events to salivate over that month. This is yet another reason why people line up to buy Auto Club 500 tickets.

Another unusual part of this race’s dynamic history is that all of the races have been won by two manufacturers, Ford and Chevrolet. They've been so dominant at this race over the years that it has become any sort of badge of honor for the two manufacturers to keep the streak alive as long as they can. However, certain other manufacturers are coming on strong, and the next race promises to be a shootout of epic proportions, enticing fans to snap up any remaining Auto Club 500 tickets that happen to be out there.

This particular race is a part of NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series, which is the top series on the NASCAR circuit. And the champion is determined at the end of the year through a point system which is mainly determined by finishing position and how many laps a driver and his car leads through the race. Sprint Cup Series racing is very hotly contested, because the money awarded to the champion at the end of the year is so large. Fans appreciate this, and continue to support Auto Club 500 tickets by buying them up as quickly as they are put on sale.

For 2010, the Auto Club 500 promises to be as hotly contested and thrilling as ever, with all of NASCAR's best teams and racers showing up to compete for Sprint Cup Series points and many thousands of dollars in prize purse money. The duel between Ford and Chevrolet for top honors at the end of the race will be just as fiercely fought, and drivers like Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart have promised the fans -- who have already bought many Auto Club 500 tickets -- a seriously entertaining race.