How do you explicitly animate a CALayer's backgroundColor

CGColorSpaceRef rgbColorspace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
CGFloat values[4] = {1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0};
CGColorRef red = CGColorCreate(rgbColorspace, values);
CGColorSpaceRelease(rgbColorspace);

CABasicAnimation *selectionAnimation = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"backgroundColor"];
[selectionAnimation setDuration:0.5f];
[selectionAnimation setToValue:[NSValue valueWithPointer:red]];
[layer addAnimation:selectionAnimation forKey:@"selectionAnimation"];

CABasicAnimation* selectionAnimation = [CABasicAnimation
    animationWithKeyPath:@"backgroundColor"];
selectionAnimation.toValue = (id)[UIColor redColor].CGColor;
[self.view.layer addAnimation:selectionAnimation
                       forKey:@"selectionAnimation"];

CABasicAnimation *ba = nil;

    ba = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath: kBackgroundColor];

    self.paleRedColor = [UIColor colorWithRed: 127.0f/255.0f green: 0.0f blue: 0.0f alpha: 1.0f];
    ba.toValue = (id) paleRedColor.CGColor;

    ba.repeatCount  = 1;
    ba.autoreverses = YES;
    ba.duration = kDuration*2;

    [self.view.layer addAnimation: ba forKey: @"flashColor"];