NASCAR: Dover Preview

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NASCAR has three races in two days on this weekend's schedule.  Two races and all the attention are at the Monster Mile, Dover International Speedway.  It's Week Two of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the AAA 400, Sunday at 1 p.m. (ABC).

They call it the Monster Mile for a reason.  DIS is exactly one mile long with high banking (24° in the turns and 9° on the 1076-feet straightaways), which leads to higher speeds.  The cars get good grip on the concrete surface, which leads drivers to push the issue, but the surface is bumpy, which can lead to trouble, especially with the new double-file restarts.  The confines are tight -- a single-car spin can quickly turn into a multi-car accident that can cause problems with twelve drivers racing for a championship.

In Friday qualifying, Jimmie Johnson captured the pole with a lap of 22.878 seconds (157.356 mph). It was his second pole of the season.  Juan Montoya will be beside Johnson on the front row after a lap of 156.699 mph. Chase drivers took six of the first seven starting spots. Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle start on Row Two. Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon start in sixth and seventh respectively. Carl Edwards has the best average finish among active drivers at Dover, but he has his work cut out for him Sunday. He qualified 30th, worst among the Chasers.  (Race lineup)

Mark Martin comes into Dover with a 35-point lead over Johnson and Denny Hamlin.  Nine drivers are separated by less than 100 points.  Jeff Gordon is in tenth, 102 points back.  Kasey Kahne trails the Chase field, he's 161 points behind Martin after just one Chase race.

NASCAR: Loudon Preview

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NASCAR travels to New Hampshire for a two-race weekend.  The big race is Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  It's the first race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship, twelve drivers vying for the championship separated by just forty points.

I'm not a big fan of the Chase.  I like the old system where a driver had to be consistent over the entire season to win the championship.  Now, a driver just has to be consistent enough over the regular season, the first 26 races, to be in the Top 12 and make the Chase.  The Chase is a playoff format; the points of the 12 Chase drivers are reset and they begin the playoffs on an almost equal footing.  The winner of the Sprint Cup champion is the best of the 12 over the final ten races of the season.  Big leads are almost always erased.  Last season, Jimmie Johnson took home the championship that should have belonged to Jeff Gordon.  Now, I'm not a Jeff Gordon fan so that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I am a Tony Stewart fan and this year eleven other drivers are vying to take home his championship.  He had a 197-point lead after Richmond, but starts this Chase ten points behind Mark Martin.  NASCAR got tired of drivers running away with championships, clinching them with races left on the schedule, and came up with this playoff format.

I also don't like the scoring system for the Chase.  It's the same as any other time of the season, but twelve drivers are competing for the championship alongside 31 other drivers who have their own reasons for being there.  Shouldn't the Chase drivers be scored separately from the other drivers?

NASCAR Tracks: Fontana

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Auto Club Speedway (a.k.a. California Speedway) at Fontana, California, is a relatively new stop on the NASCAR circuit. NASCAR wanted to add more races on the west coast, and, in July of 1994, before construction even began, announced plans to sanction races upon completion of the facility. Construction began in November of 1995. The inaugural California 500 was held in June of 1997 and Jeff Gordon took the checkered flag at the event.

As NASCAR moved to other markets, they took some of the old tracks off of the schedule. After Daytona opened the season, NASCAR used to race the next week at Rockingham. That track, along with North Wilkesboro and others, is gone from the NASCAR schedule and now they race in Fontana after Daytona.

In 2003, when a second California race was added to the schedule, they took it from Darlington. The Labor Day race at Darlington, the Southern 500, was moved to Fontana. NASCAR has finally rectified this situation somewhat by moving the holiday weekend race back to the South, to Atlanta, and moving the second California race to October.

Auto Club Speedway is a two-mile D-shaped oval. The turns have 14 degrees of banking, the 3100-foot front stretch has 11 degrees of banking, the 2500-foot back straightaway has just three degrees of banking. The track is very similar to its sister track, Michigan International Speedway.

The Automobile Club of Southern California became the title sponsor of the racetrack in February 2008. The naming rights will last for ten years. The track also has infield segments that can be reconfigured several different ways, allowing the track to host road races, motorcycle races, vehicle testing, and drag races.

Look for a lot of side-by-side racing as drivers run from the wall all the way down to the apron, but also look for the field to get strung out as the faster cars leave the slower ones in the dust. The engines will be in the high rpm range all day long, and usually a couple don't make it out alive. You'll hear a lot about clean air and dirty air during a race broadcast from Fontana -- the leader's car (out in the clean air) will handle a lot better than a car back in the pack (in the dirty air).

Jimmie Johnson leads all drivers with five wins at ACS.  Kyle Busch became the youngest driver ever to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup race when he won the Auto Club 500 in February 2005 at age 20, but that record has since been bested by Joey Logano at Loudon in 2008. Kyle Busch also holds the Sprint Cup qualifying record at ACS -- 188.245 mph, set that same weekend in February 2005.

Auto Club Speedway currently hosts a Sprint Cup race, the Auto Club 500, and a Nationwide race in February.  In October, Auto Club Speedway hosts a second Cup race and a second Nationwide race.  In an attempt to increase competitiveness, NASCAR decided in January 2010 to decrease the October Cup race by 100 miles.  The Pepsi Max 400 is the fourth race in the ten-race Chase for the Sprint Cup.  Fontana is not currently on the Camping World Truck Series schedule.

In 2010 NASCAR revamped the schedules for all three national touring series.  The Sprint Cup series will add a second race at Kansas Speedway and added a new track to the lineup -- Kentucky Speedway.  To do that they took one of the two races away from Atlanta Motor Speedway and Auto Club Speedway.  Starting in 2011, Auto Club Speedway's Cup race will be the fifth race on the season schedule.  It will be held in late February.  The Nationwide Series will race at ACS on the same weekend.

(diagram from NASCAR.com)

Fontana Cup race winners
NASCAR tracks index