It's the same thing every time NASCAR visits Southern California.

There's a boring race in front of half-empty grandstands with a generous sprinkling of celebrities as flag wavers and engine starters.

Drivers talk about how challenging Auto Club Speedway in Fontana is with its rough surface, multiple racing grooves and seams. Most fans couldn't care less.

Cars quickly spread out all over the wide, low-banked, two-mile track in monotonous green-flag runs with drivers content to log laps and wait for the finish. It's almost as exciting as watching grass grow.

Sunday's 400-mile race was 382 miles of coma-inducing madness for all but the most rabid NASCAR fans. It was only in the last nine laps that things got interesting.

As exciting as the slam-bang finish was -- with Kevin Harvick blowing past Jimmie Johnson in the final turn of the final lap -- it's not enough to save this race.

An NFL game that ends on a Hail Mary pass is exciting, but it doesn't make you glad you had to sit through nearly four quarters of inept offense and shoddy defense to get to it.

But Fontana is here to stay. NASCAR is too enamored with having a presence in the nation's No. 2 TV market to pull up stakes and leave.

But it's time to quit pretending that the racing there is exciting. There is only so much lipstick that can be put on a pig. And at the risk of breaking the Larry McReynolds Commandment -- Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of NASCAR -- this one is a pig.

So, instead of complaining about it, let's finally do something about it.

NASCAR has already tried the solutions that don't cost anything -- reducing the number of races from two a year to one and reducing the length of the race from 500 miles to 400.

Reducing the number of laps was a good idea, but it only meant that fans got 30 minutes less sleep in the middle of the race.

No, it's time for the big-dollar solution, the one that the folks at track owner International Speedway Corp. don't want to contemplate. The one with seven zeros.

ISC didn't want to have to repave Daytona for several more years but a hugely embarrassing pothole during the Daytona 500 forced the company's hand.

Has Fontana become enough of an embarrassment yet that ISC will break out the checkbook and send in the earth-moving equipment at Fontana? We can only hope.

It's time to revive an idea that Michael Waltrip and Fontana track president Gillian Zucker floated three years ago to increase the banking and convert Fontana into the sport's third restrictor-plate track.

The track is wide enough and long enough that increasing the banking from its present 14 degrees in the turns to 32 would make it Talladega West.

Drivers would hate that. They hate the big drafting packs. They hate the two-car tandems. They hate the Big One. They hate the arbitrariness of a plate track.

All of which are loved by fans. There's a reason Daytona and Talladega routinely draw some of the highest TV ratings and crowds of the season.

At most tracks there are only about 12 or 15 drivers with a legitimate shot at winning. At a plate track, almost anyone can win.

Nowhere but at a plate track could Brad Keselowski have delivered a win for a James Finch team that had never won a Cup race in decades of trying.

Nowhere but at a plate track could Trevor Bayne have electrified the sport and returned the hallowed Wood Brothers team to Victory Lane.

Plate racing isn't for purists. It's for fans who crave the anticipation that mayhem could break out at any moment.

Those are the kind who would fill the stands at Fontana. Those are the kind who would stay glued to the TV.