in NASCAR Articles

Auto Club 500, California Speedway, February 25, 2007

Fresh off of Super Bowl - last week's Daytona 500 - the teams cross the nation to take on the two-mile track at Fontana. The thirty-one degree banking faced in the turns in Daytona will be replaced by fourteen degree banking in the turns taken in the California sun.

Last weekend, Kevin Harvick came out of nowhere to beat crowd-favorite and crafty-veteran Mark Martin to the checkered flag… by two-one-hundredths of a second. Behind the two of them, chaos ensued. Few cars made it through the race unharmed.

Harvick, capped-off by a solid “push” from Matt Kenseth, made up nearly thirty spots in fifteen laps to win his first Daytona 500. Jeff Burton, Mike Wallace, David Ragan, Elliot Sadler and Kasey Kahne rounded-out the top-seven. David Gilliland, who started on the pole, finished eighth. After pushing Harvick to the win last weekend, Kenseth got caught up in the final-lap melee and finished in twenty-seventh position.

Fortunately, for the drivers and the crews charged with rebuilding the numerous dented and destroyed sleds, set-ups for the superspeedway restrictor-place contest in Daytona are nearly irrelevant to the set-ups which will be adopted this week at California's more traditional track. Of course, that also complicates predictions based on last week's efforts at Daytona.

As for past California Speedway races, Matt Kenseth won last year's race and Kasey Kahne won the fall race (Sony HD 500). Placing after Kenseth in last year's Auto Club 500 were Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards and Kasey Kahne and Jeff Burton.

Greg Biffle snatched the checkered-flag during the 2005 race (he was very much in the mix last weekend at Daytona). As he did last season, Jimmie Johnson finished second in 2005. Kurt Busch, Jamie McMurry, Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick round out the top-six from the race two years ago.

Toyota hopes for a better showing on the West-coast than occurred in Daytona. Michael Waltrip's new team fared best but that was only good for the twenty-third spot (Dale Jarrett) and the thirtieth spot, claimed by Waltrip, himself.

Another storyline at Daytona was the debut of former Indy car driver, Juan Pablo Montoya. Having battled a set-up described as “silly-tight” at the beginning of the race, Montoya recovered and finished with a respectable nineteenth-place finish.

Based on their performances at the California Speedway the last two years, one has to like Jimmie Johnson's chances, as well as those of Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards.

Also, keep an eye on Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart. Traditionally very strong drivers, they were battling for the lead last weekend when Busch accidentally caught the rear-end of Stewart's car causing them both to crash and fail to finish.

One oddity to be aware of this weekend is that the racers will be required to race on unleaded fuel rather than typical racing fuel. It is anybody's guess whose set-up will benefit most from this curve-ball.

If you love motor sports, you’ll love to today and you’ll soon love how online sports betting makes each lap exciting.