Will the 4-car make it four-straight? Or will someone else with a four in their number continue to be good at this track, like Kyle Larson or Jimmie Johnson? That is what Sunday is for. However before then let’s take a look at the track hosting this week’s race and who that favors.
Auto Club Speedway is a 2-mile D-shaped oval in Fontana, California (just east of L.A.). The banking on the track is fairly shallow for a layout of that size with the turns angled at 9-11 degrees progressively. However the shallow banking doesn’t stop the drivers from carrying a lot of speed through the track with speeds topping 210 mph occasionally. Most often Michigan International Speedway is considered a sister track since it’s the only other 2-mile layout on the schedule, but the banking there is much steeper than Auto Club. Texas Motor Speedway is slightly shorter at a 1.5-mile length, but the speeds are very similar to what they are in California.
This track is one of the widest on the schedule and has as many as seven racing lanes to it. The problem comes with the seams that are visible on the surface of the pavement which have been known to cause tires to go down and to cause cars to get loose if the driver drives right along the seam instead of crossing it on an angle. There are new tires being used here this week that Goodyear redesigned the left front tires to be more rigid and stable so as to not go flat so easily because of the seams and big bumps down the back stretch.
An important note this week is that only 21 cars were able to run a lap in qualifying on Friday night and 16 cars had issues with inspection and missed qualifying, sending them to the back of the pack. Practice speeds from the second and final practices are the important ones to focus on as they were the sessions in which race trim was used much more than the opening session on Friday. Green flag runs at Fontana are about 35-40 laps so long-run speed will be important to notice as well and marking the guys who ran their best 10-lap runs later in the run are good things to spot.
Stacks
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