FONTANA, Calif. -- The Daytona 500 is the official start to the Sprint Cup schedule, but the majority of the drivers are pointing at this weekend as the point where the "real season" begins. And that seems to be the prevailing sentiment, whether they left Daytona with momentum, or a lack of it.

“

I think the only thing you can take out of Daytona is momentum and points. Other than that, you really can't take much out of Daytona.

”

-- JEFF GORDON

"Daytona doesn't mean a whole lot other than maybe some confidence or momentum once you get to a track like this or a majority of our schedule," said Kasey Kahne, who qualified 22nd for Sunday's Auto Club 500. "It's kind of like Race No. 1 this weekend and I'm looking forward to getting started."

Daytona is unique, in that restrictor-plate racing results in a random roll of the dice at times. But starting with this weekend, the series visits three intermediate tracks -- places where handling is preferable to horsepower, and passing is done without an assistance of a drafting partner.

"I think the only thing you can take out of Daytona is momentum and points," said Jeff Gordon, who will roll off sixth. "You can see which teams are well-prepared and executing well. All I can really say is that our goal through Daytona was to make improvements in how we performed, whether it's pit stops or communications or speed on the track and I felt like we lived up to all those things.

"So it's just one race. Other than that, you really can't take much out of Daytona, being a restrictor plate track and this is going to be a handling track."

Carl Edwards sees California as the first step in assessing where you stand against the competition. (Continued)