FONTANA, Calif. -- Dale Jarrett presumably has never been so happy to head home before a Nextel Cup race.

While Jarrett no doubt was disappointed in his failure to qualify for the Sharp Aquos 500, come about 8:10 p.m. ET when the race starts Sunday, he won't miss what lies immediately ahead for the 43 competitors who will head down the California Speedway backstretch at high speeds. Speaking with a local newspaper reporter prior to his failure to qualify Friday, Jarrett lamented the glare of the sun that beats down on the track -- and the cars -- for the first part of late-afternoon affairs at the venue.

"We need to get somebody to ride in [the cars] with us for the start of the race to see it is a terrible time to start the race," Jarrett told the San Bernardino Sun. "When you are going down the backstretch at close to 200 mph and you can't see anything -- that's not very fun.

"There's not a driver out there that likes driving at that particular time. You can't adjust to it. You are literally blinded by the sun for at least a 35- to 45-minute timeframe."

That's not all the drivers will have to deal with during this Sunday's 500-mile event. There is also the heat brought on by the relentless sun. On Friday, the temperature reached 109 degrees in nearby Riverside, Calif. -- breaking a 96-year-old record. It hovered at around 105 at California Speedway, but on the asphalt of the track that translated to 140 degrees or more.

And inside the car, it can feel even hotter. Drivers laden in their fire suits must carefully monitor themselves as much as the cars they're driving to make sure neither overheats.

"I forget how hot it is out here until we get here every time in September," Jimmie Johnson said.

But it could be worse, added Johnson, a native of El Cajon, Calif. Asked the hottest weather he has ever raced in, Johnson recalled some sweaty times when he was running in the SCORE Desert Series at about 18 years old.

"As far as air temperature, I would say the race in Barstow [Calif.] that we would run for the SCORE Desert Series was always really, really hot," he said. "It was in July. I can remember 110, 115 degrees."

But even that wasn't the hottest Johnson has endured driving a racecar.

"It was in that Daytona Prototype that I ran in July at Daytona," he said. "Those things are so hot. Cup cars are hot, and hotter than most. But those enclosed-cockpit endurance cars are really, really hot.

"The [off-road] trucks you have, you don't run a windshield in them so you have air running across your suit -- plus you can always turn on your water bottle and let it saturate your suit, which is helpful. In a Daytona Prototype, there is no air moving around inside those cars. On top of that you have the radiator at the front of the vehicle and the vents run over the windshield and over the cockpit of the car. Unlike a Nextel Cup car where it kind of blows down and out, it comes right over the cockpit of the car and just superheats the inside of it."

Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 2 Dodge that sits on the pole for Sunday's race, said how much heat is felt inside a Cup car actually seems to be relative to how fast you might be going as the race progresses.

"It's really odd," he said. "When the race starts, your body is dry and your driver's suit is dry and it feels like you're running around in a dryer with forced hot air hitting your body. When it's wet [from sweat], the air hits your body and somewhat cools it a little bit.

"You just try to get your car handling well. Good-handling cars can take away heat. It's amazing how that works -- and then you just make sure you stay hydrated."

Of course, the heat plays a factor in how a car handles, too.

"Most of what we deal with when it's hot like this is track temperature," Jeff Gordon said. "We're seeing track temperatures this weekend of almost 150 degrees -- and that's almost unheard of.

"That's pretty crazy, so you basically have about a half to three-quarters of a lap of good grip in the tires and then you really start sliding around. So getting the car to handle well on a hot racetrack is going to be the biggest challenge we have."

Well, that and that nasty backstretch where the sun basically blinds the drivers for the first 45 minutes of the race. The good news there is that eventually the sun goes down -- cooling the track, the inside of the cars, and opening eyes to see all that is around them.

"Yeah, you don't want to not be able to see at all. That's a bad thing, and it's pretty difficult," driver Martin Truex Jr. said about the early-race glare that so upsets Jarrett. "Obviously we tape the windshield up to try to help. But it's a little weird for the first hour of the race or so. It's a little bit frustrating because it's hard to see. But we've dealt with it at places like Darlington where it's a lot more critical to know where you're at on the racetrack, so hopefully it won't be that big of an issue."

Jeff Burton wasn't so sure it won't be.

"It's a part of the racing here that I wish we didn't have to deal with," Burton said. "It's a nuisance and it has the potential to be a definite problem."