California dreaming in NASCAR

NASCAR has the Alabama Gang and North Carolina is where the blood pumps fastest. But California has produced the most drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
Jeff Gordon, who grew up in Vallejo, Calif., is the most successful NASCAR driver in terms of wins. He has 85 in his career, the most of any active driver in the Sprint Cup Series and the most in NASCAR's modern era.
Jimmie Johnson, from El Cajon near San Diego, has the most Cup championships with five of any active drivers in the Sprint Cup Series.
Kevin Harvick from Bakersfield is the reigning race winner in the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.
The Sprint Cup Series makes its annual visit to the Fontana track this weekend.
Go to ESPN Los Angeles for more on the NASCAR races at Fontana and the drivers from California who are racing there.

Photo: Jeff Gordon, a three-time winner at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, meets with fans at the Lucky Strike bowling alley at LA Live. (Credit: Auto Club Speedway)

Three minutes with four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champ Jeff Gordon

Four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon visited LA Live in downtown Los Angeles on Monday and talked about, among other things, how much the stock car series has changed since his rookie season.
He talked about momentum, how to get it and how much it helped Tony Stewart win the Chase for the Sprint Cup last year.
He said he has great respect for Stewart and his team for what they accomplished last season.
Gordon was very candid about what he needs to do to capture a fifth Cup championship and how his relationship with new crew chief Alan Gustafson has developed.
Gordon and the rest of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series will visit Auto Club Speedway in Fontana on March 25. Gordon is a three-time winner at Auto Club Speedway.

Your chance to ask Jeff Gordon a question

Ever wonder if Jeff Gordon wants his kids to follow in his footsteps as a NASCAR driver? Has he ever considered driving for a team other than Hendrick Motorsports? How are he and his new crew chief gelling?
Fans have already submitted those questions on the Bosch Sparks Plug Facebook page. Gordon will answer some of those questions directly, vie video, on the Facebook page.
Submit your questions. The deadline is June 30. It doesn't look like anything is off limits, but keep in family-friendly.

Photo: Jeff Gordon, who won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway a couple weeks ago, is taking fan questions through the Bosch Spark Plug Facebook page. (Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

NASCAR winless streaks

As hard as it is to believe, Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards each have some pretty long NASCAR Sprint Cup Series winless streaks.
Gordon has gone 58 Cup races without a win. He is a three-time winner at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, site of today's Pepsi Max 400. His last win in Fontana came in 2004.
When asked if he knew what it takes to win at Auto Club Speedway, he said, "I don't know. Ask me after Sunday because it's been a while since we've won one anywhere and this track is a tricky one."
Tricky is a relative term. It seems the driver who can get out front at Auto Club Speedway can break away from he rest of the field. The drivers left behind have to work to get to the front.
Still Gordon insists track conditions can present some challenges.
"It's slick. The grooves move around during the race and we haven't had the success here recently that we've had in the past," Gordon said. "Sometimes it takes fuel mileage. Sometimes it takes having a good car on the restarts. Sometimes pit strategy, but a lot of different things. I'll take a fast car anywhere we go, that always help."
Edwards hasn't won a Cup race in his past 65 starts. He is also a former winner at Fontana, coming in the February race in 2008. He is coming off a sixth-place finish at Kansas Speedway last weekend.
"I believe last week was a good test for us," Edwards said. "That Kansas race track is a lot like the Auto Club Speedway. It's going to be a really hot, slippery race on Sunday. It looks like the temperatures are going to be pretty high. I feel like our team has been marching towards this points lead just little bits at a time and I think is an opportunity for us to do that again."

Photo: California native Jeff Gordon is fifth in the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup standings after three races. He starts 17th in today's Pepsi Max 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. (Credit: Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Infineon Raceway favorites to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in Sonoma

Roger Craig, the Hall of Fame running back and three-time Super Bowl champion with the San Francisco 49ers, is the grand marshal for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Toyota Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma.
He was asked before the race who his favorite NASCAR driver is. He said Jeff Gordon.
“He’s the man. He’s the Michael Jordan,” Craig said.
Gordon is a five-time winner in Cup races at Infineon Raceway, more than any other driver. He owns the track qualifying record, which he set in 2005. He starts fifth in today’s race at Infineon Raceway.
Gordon is Craig’s favorite. Here’s a look at the other drivers who should have a good race today:
1.    Kasey Kahne. He has the pole and won the Cup race at Infineon Raceway last year. Five drivers have won from the pole in 21 Cup races at Infineon Raceway. The last driver to do it was Gordon in 2004.
2.    Jimmie Johnson. He has never won at Infineon Raceway. He has never won a road course Cup race. But he had one of the better cars in practice and starts on the front row next to Kahne.
3.    Kevin Harvick. He’s another driver who doesn’t have a great Cup record at Infineon Raceway. In nine Cup races, he has only two top fives. His average finish is 18th place. But he is the leader in the Sprint Cup Series standings and starts fourth.
4.    Tony Stewart. He’s a two-time winner at Sonoma. He has the best driver rating at Sonoma. In 11 Cup races at Sonoma, he has seven top 10s. He starts seventh.
5.    Juan Pablo Montoya. Sure he hates the course and he has been struggling in the Cup Series. But he won this race in 2007 as a Cup rookie. Only Stewart has a better record among active Cup drivers at Sonoma. He starts 14th.
Dark horses: Marcus Ambrose was the fastest driver in the two practice sessions on Saturday.  But being the fastest in practice and the fastest in the race are two completely different things.
“Unfortunately, it’s racing,” Ambrose said. “There’s no guarantees. We’ve been working hard. We’ll see what happens.”
Jamie McMurray, the 2010 Daytona 500 winner, was second fastest in practice. He could be in store for a good run at Sonoma.
“We got our car a lot better,” McMurray said. “You only run wide open for a small amount here, so you have to have your car set up for the corners.
“I love road racing. My favorite track is Infineon. I love coming here.”
Wild card: Kyle Busch. He won the race in 2008 and has two top 10s in five Cup races at Sonoma.  He finished 22nd in last year’s race in Sonoma and was 40th in his rookie race in 2005.

Photo: Jeff Gordon is a five-time winner in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma. (Credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Gordon returns to Texas, site of lone Cup win in 2009

Jeff Gordon is 1-for-the-NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. That one win came at Texas Motor Speedway in April.
The Cup drivers are back in Texas for Sunday’s race. Gordon was asked about having only one win 33 races into the season.
“I’m a little disappointed in that,” said Gordon, who won the pole for Sunday's Cup race at Texas. “We’ve had a bunch of second-place finishes this year, so we’ve been close. But it is disappointing we haven’t been able to get more victories. It gives us something to work on for next season.”
Gordon was also asked how his team is approaching the last three Cup races of the year. It looks like Jimmie Johnson is well on his way to his fourth Cup championship in a row. Even though Johnson won’t talk about having it all but wrapped up, Gordon said the Chase is a race for second place at this point.
“Those guys are tough,” Gordon said. “They’re solid. They’ve really done their job. All we can do is go out and focus on our race team, our race cars, and get the best finishes that we possibly can, try to end the season on a positive note. We still have a great battle going for second in points. If for some crazy reason, those guys had trouble, we have to make sure we capitalize on it. I think our focus right now is winning races and trying to get to second in points.”
Finally, Gordon was asked about Danica Patrick making the move to NASCAR next year. It has been reported that Patrick, the only woman driver to win an IndyCar Series race, will make her NASCAR debut with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Nationwide Series team in 2010. Gordon said he is a fan of the move.
“I think it would be great if that’s the case,” Gordon said. “I think that she obviously has a great presence and fan base. There could be a lot of excitement that could be built around it. I think she has a steep learning curve, so I think everybody’s anxious to see how she does. The only way she’s ever going to really know is to get in there and do it. It’s a big step. You got to give her credit for making that kind of a commitment. We’ll all just kind of wait and see.”

Photo: Jeff Gordon has won only one NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in 2009. That came at Texas Motor Speedway in April. (Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Newman a victim of boredom at Talladega

Ryan Newman, he of the spectacular, end-over-end, rooftop slide and crash at the end of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway, said it was boring.
Not so much the crash, but the race.
Boring for 490 miles. The last 10 miles of the race were pretty exciting. Newman crashed and about half the field was left in ruins. Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski got together on the green-white-checker finish and caused another crash that sent a car airborne. Mark Martin ended up flipping down the race track and made for some pretty entertaining racing or crashing, depending on your perspective.
Newman said after the race it was a ridiculous race and blamed NASCAR for making up and adding more rules for the drivers and teams to follow. In particular, NASCAR told the drivers before the race not to bump draft.
“The more rules, the more NASCAR is telling us how to drive the race cars, the less we can race and the less we can put on a show for the fans,” Newman said. “As I said, I will go back in the day, Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, all those guys, they respected each other. In the end there were some big accidents, but geez, we don’t need the cars getting upside down like this. This is ridiculous. There is way more technology than that to help us out.”
Jeff Gordon didn’t quite agree with Newman’s assessment that there are too many rules in NASCAR these days to make it a safer sport. He did however say that the races, particularly at Talladega, might be a tad too long.
“I mean we know what we’re up against. And why go out there and beat and bang and turn one another sideways in the first 100 or 200 miles?” Gordon said “You want to make this a really exciting race for the whole race, make it 200 miles. That’s why the truck races and other races when they come here are so exciting. To me, our sport is about strategy, it’s about longevity, it’s about pacing yourself. I thought it was a great race. But unfortunately the rules that we have are going to play out. The cars suck up too much. And they need to change that for this race track or it’s just going to happen every single time.”
Newman added that if the Cup race was only 100 laps, it would have been a better race.
“Whether it is a speed issue, a roof flap issue, whatever. I said it myself in the media center after the spring race here, and now to be the guy standing here trying to live it all out again, I'm just happy I am living it out,” Newman said. “But it is ridiculous situation. It is a shame that not more is getting done. I don’t know. I guess maybe I expect NASCAR to call me. I am the only guy out there with an engineering degree. I would like to have a little respect on my end.”

Photo: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers race side-by-side at Talladega Superspeedway during the AMP Energy 500 on Sunday in Talladega, Ala. (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Johnson needs a rival in NASCAR

Jeff Gordon is entering hostile territory this weekend: Talladega Superspeedway. His victory laps at the Alabama track have been met with beer bottle baths from the fans. The level of hate unloaded on Gordon dates back to the days when he and Dale Earnhardt battled for fan respect in 1990s. Earnhardt, win or lose, was the fan favorite at Talladega. To this day, whenever Gordon wins a race at Talladega, the fans express their disapproval. Even though Earnhardt died years ago, the rivalry lives on in Talladega.
No matter how many races he won, especially at Talledega, Gordon was never going to win the respect of the fans there.
Gordon was asked if people thought he was ruining the show when he was dominating NASCAR the same way Jimmie Johnson is now.
“It didn’t matter to me what other people thought,” Gordon said. “But there was a rivalry there and it was great. It built up that rivalry because it made people that were Earnhardt fans only hate me more and it built up the people that started to like me; it built that fan base up more. And it was really sort of divided and I think the more you dominate, the more they divide and that’s only a good thing for this sport as well as for Jimmie.”


Only problem is, Johnson doesn’t have a rival. It probably should be Tony Stewart. He is Johnson’s only contemporary with multiple championships.
This should be a natural conflict. Johnson is squeaky clean, the NASCAR good guy and hero to all.
Stewart is the scruffy-looking bad boy – a maverick, loner, outsider, wavemaker – the driver Earnhardt fans should gravitate toward.
Yet there is nary a rivalry between Stewart and Johnson. Drivers aren’t allowed to hate each other anymore. For some reason, Stewart fans don’t have a particular passionate hatred for Johnson fans, and vice versa. There needs to be some good hate brewing between these two to make NASCAR a little more interesting.
That’s one more criticism heaped on Johnson for making NASCAR hard to watch these days. Although Gordon said he doesn’t think Johnson is getting too much criticism for dominating.
“Oh, I don’t know if he does,” Gordon said. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that. There was a lot of criticism back then too.”

Photos: Top: Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt created a rivalry that still exists in some parts of NASCAR nation. Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama is one of those places. NASCAR needs Jimmie Johnson to find a rival to make things interesting again. (Photo Credit: John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Middle: Jimmie Johnson needs a rival. Jeff Gordon had Dale Earnhardt. Johnson fans need to start rooting against Tony Stewart as much as they root for Johnson. (Photo Credit: Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Bottom: Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet, would be a perfect rival for Jimmie Johnson. At least it would make things more interesting in NASCAR this time of year. (Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Racing for second at Auto Club Speedway

Everyone knows Jimmie Johnson dominates at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. He has three wins, eight top fives and nine top 10s in 13 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at the 2-mile oval. He has an average finish of 6.2, best among drivers in the Chase.
He won the Cup race at Fontana last year in September. He heads into the fourth race of the Chase in second place in the Cup standings.
It would be hard to find a track Johnson has not had success at. But adding Fontana to the Chase only strengthened his chances of winning a fourth Cup championship.
"I think the season comes to us in a way," Johnson said. "I know that we perform well in the Chase but I think the schedule is helpful for the No. 48 car. We have great results and it gives us a lot of hope going into these tracks but we still have to show up and get the job done. So we have a positive mindset looking forward to those tracks. It will make the week easier leading into those tracks but we still have to go in there and get to work. I’m excited for it.”
If Johnson owns Auto Club Speedway, who has the best chance of foreclosing on his property?
He has to look no further than his own teammate and part owner at Hendrick Motorsports. Jeff Gordon has three wins, nine top fives and two poles in 18 races at Fontana. He has an average finish of 10.8 in those races.
"The competition is as even as I've ever seen it, so we must make the most of our bad days," Gordon said. "And we definitely need to take advantage of tracks where we should be good. Like this weekend at Fontana."
But Gordon isn't Johnson's biggest threat. Carl Edwards has an average finish of 6.7 in 10 Cup races at Fontana. He has one win, six top fives and nine top 10s in those 10 races. It's a pretty safe bet he'll be in the top 10 again, if not competing for the win.
Kasey Kahne might be the wild card in this race. In 11 races at Fontana, he has one win and seven top 10s.

Photo: Points leader and three-time Chase for the Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson (left), driver of the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet, chats with Kansas native Clint Bowyer (right), driver of the Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet, during qualifying Friday for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Price Chopper 400 presented by Kraft Foods at the Kansas Speedway on Saturday. (Photo Credit: Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)

NASCAR, NHRA head east

NASCAR and the NHRA made their winter visits to the West Coast. NASCAR will be in Georgia at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend after racing in Fontana and Las Vegas. The NHRA heads to Florida for the Gatornationals in Gainesville.
I'm still trying to figure out how Matt Kenseth can win the first two races of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and be third in the Cup standings.
Kenseth ended up 43rd and last at Las Vegas, barely completing one lap before having to withdraw. He was trying to become the first NASCAR driver to win the first three races of the Cup season.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever dropped out on lap one before," Kenseth said after the race in Vegas. "It’s never really easy. We didn’t even really get to race (Sunday) and we qualified bad, so it was a pretty long weekend for nothing. It’s disappointing no matter what. I’m glad we did great the last two weeks, but, really, you take it one week at a time and shift your focus to that race each and every week, so it’s always disappointing when something like that happens.”

Jeff Gordon, winless since 2007, is leading, with Clint Bowyer in second. Bowyer in second place might be the most bizarre thing about the Cup standings after three races. Seeing Michael Waltrip in the top 12 is a little surprising too. But what has Bowyer done in the first three races, except complain about his garage spot at Fontana?
Nothing against Bowyer, but it's not like he's been much of a factor in the first three races. He had a good run in Vegas, but that's about it.
As for the NHRA, Ron Capps came out as the surprise leader in the Funny Car standings. He won the first two events of the year, at Pomona and Las Vegas.
Capps said the great start to the 2009 season started in the 2008 season finale in Pomona when Ace McCulloch started overhauling his car.
"When we left Pomona, even though we ran good, he completely re-did the tune-up on the car, went back to basics, and started from scratch, redid the whole car," Capps said. "When we showed up in West Palm for our first test session, we were the quickest car every session. Then when we went to Phoenix for pre-season testing, we wanted to test a lot of things. When we rolled into Pomona, we were a little bit apprehensive but a little bit confident. We weren’t sure how the weekend was going to go. To win there, it just proved that a lot of hard work paid off."
Antron Brown is atop the Top Fuel standings. Jason Line leads the Pro Stock standings.