Posted on by Holly Cain

Relative unknown shines in Nationwide Series

FONTANA, Calif. — Absolutely convinced of his ability and committed to his dream, Alex Bowman finished up high school a year-and-a-half early and at the age of 16, packed up and moved 2,000 miles from his Tucson, Ariz., home to an apartment in Mooresville, N.C., ready to make a name in NASCAR.

Entering the Royal Purple 300, the 19-year-old Bowman led the Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year standings over a host of preseason can’t-misses, big names and mega-teams.

The youngest driver behind the wheel, he has a pair of top-10 finishes and contended for another and is ranked 10th in the championship standings.

“I don’t think a lot of people really gave us high expectations but we all expected a lot of ourselves, we’ve got a lot of good people at RAB Racing and a lot of great race cars,’’ Bowman said. “So we’re not surprised, I think a lot of others might be.

“We’re going to compete for (Sunoco) Rookie of the Year and we’ll compete to win races at the same time.”

"We’re not surprised, I think a lot of others might be. We’re going to compete for (Sunoco) Rookie of the Year and we’ll compete to win races at the same time."

— Alex Bowman

Both the sport’s wily veterans and ordained hotshots have certainly taken notice. Fans should too.

“Alex gets a little overshadowed, but that’s OK, we’ll just keep flying under the radar and by the end of the year people will say, ‘Hey, where did this kid come from,’ ” Bowman’s veteran crew chief Chris Rice explained, with a slight smirk.

Bowman is tall, lanky and appears even younger than his nearly 20 years. He likes video games, loves electronic dance music (EDM) and enjoys drift racing. He’s well-spoken and photogenic. And he’s already got a “brand” and management company run by Daymond John, founder of the FUBU clothing line and star of the popular ABC television show, “Shark Tank.”

“The thing about Daymond is he’s never failed on any of his projects,’’ Bowman said earnestly from the infield of Auto Club Speedway Friday afternoon. “He wanted to get involved with NASCAR and I think he likes that I’m different.’’

And fast.

“We had heard about him through mutual friends and I just started watching Alex and then we met a couple times after that and I became fascinated with him,’’ John said Saturday before giving the starting command for the Royal Purple 300.

“I’ve worked with many, many celebrities in the past from the Kardashians, Lennox Lewis, Pitbull that have become very big and (Bowman) has what it takes that I’ve seen in every single one of those people.

“Alex is a great, great kid and someone who is sellable and can move to the top."

Like a lot of NASCAR’s West Coast drivers, Bowman came up in the USAC midget and sprint ranks before deciding to make a career of it in stock cars. He came to the No. 99 RAB Racing with Brack Maggard team after an impressive 2012 season in the developmental ARCA Series, where he won four races, earned six poles and had double the laps led (554) of anyone else in the series.

What’s most impressive about that is there were only three full-time employees on his ARCA team. It “rented” a pit crew on race day and in addition to Bowman — who worked on the car himself — the team often relied on students from the NASCAR Technical Institute to help prepare the cars for race weekends.

“And that struggle has definitely made him a better driver now,’’ said his long-time friend and current public relations manager Van Knill.

Rice agrees.

“Alex is a car person,’’ Rice said. “He likes cars, he understands cars, and he works on his own car and that doesn’t happen much anymore. And that means he goes faster, quicker. The big thing we have to remember is he’s only 19. He still likes video games and that dance music, but when he’s in the car, it’s like you’re talking to a 30-year-old.’’

That maturity is apparent when speaking with Bowman, who has taken a methodical and measured approach to his career.

“I want to go Cup racing, but I want to win a Nationwide championship first,’’ Bowman said. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself and say I want to go Cup racing in 2015 after two years in the Nationwide Series because if I haven’t consistently won races in the Nationwide Series, I shouldn’t go Cup racing.

“I want to prove myself here before I even think about moving up.’’

It’s an attitude veteran Mark Martin, 54, can appreciate.

With the second most wins in Nationwide Series history, Martin met with Bowman before the series race in Las Vegas two weeks ago. As he’s done with other, more experienced competitors, Bowman picked Martin’s brain and took in all the sage advice he could from the likely future Hall of Famer who is currently driving a partial season for Michael Waltrip Racing.

“So far I give him really high marks,’’ Martin said Friday. “He continues to run better in that car than he should.

“I like his style and his mannerisms. I don’t know him real well yet, but really good first impression.’’

Similar to what he did in Vegas, Bowman took a tutorial ride around the 2-mile oval in a pace car with veteran Elliott Sadler.

“I’ve never been here before so a lot of it visual, seeing all the seams and getting advice on the line to run, different things about the race track,’’ Bowman said.

It’s his willingness to learn, combined with natural ability and an old-school love of mechanics that Rice says gives Bowman that special “it” factor he and John have recognized.

And others have taken note as well. In fact Bowman says the “coolest thing” that’s happened this year was when Kyle Busch congratulated him after an eighth-place run at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — one of the many Nationwide venues Bowman had never turned a lap prior to the season.

“Kyle came out of his way at Las Vegas to say, ‘good job’ and I don’t think he does that very often, so it meant a lot coming from him,’’ Bowman recalled with a wide smile

Leaning back in the team’s hauler, he smiled again thinking about how far he’s come. And how far he can go.

“I’m having a lot of fun,’’ he said. “My crew guys are my best friends. They’ve been awesome. It’s been stressful and a lot of hard work (to get here) but I love what I’m doing and I wouldn’t change a thing.’’

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Driver of No. 54 car follows up win last week with Saturday pole

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Kyle Busch, the winner of last week’s Nationwide Series race at Bristol, continued his hot streak by winning the pole during qualifying ahead of Saturday’s Royal Purple 300 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.

Busch ran his first qualifying lap in 40.312 seconds with a best speed of 178.607 mph.

Elliott Sadler, Brian Vickers, Brad Keselowski, and Nelson Piquet Jr. rounded out the top five with times of 40.545, 40.655, 40.683, and 40.708, respectively.

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Current points leader Sam Hornish Jr. was seventh with a best speed of 176.246.

Travis Pastrana was 14th with a time of 41.088.


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No. 55 driver shows improvement after running most laps in early practice

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Mark Martin showed he learned something from running 39 laps in the early Saturday practice, taking the top time in the final run before Sunday’s Auto Club 400. Halfway through practice Martin held the fastest individual lap, as well as best five and 10 consecutive laps. After running 30 laps, Martin finished with a best lap time of 39.269 seconds and a best speed of 183.351 mph.

Clint Bowyer took the second-fastest lap of 39.356 seconds and a best speed of 182.945 mph, with his best lap coming on Lap 1. Bowyer ran 34 laps. AJ Allmendinger ran the most laps with 37.

Toyotas took the top three spots on the leaderboard with Matt Kenseth in third, .110 seconds behind Martin with a best lap time of 39.379. Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski followed with best laps of 39.470 and 39.479 seconds, respectively.

Greg Biffle, who sat at the top of the chart in the earlier practice, battled a tight car to finish in eighth, .261 seconds off from Martin’s time. His best speed was 182.140 mph, compared to his earlier 186.253.

Last week’s race winner, Kasey Kahne, finished with the sixth-fastet lap, .257 seconds behind Martin. Polesitter Denny Hamlin fell just short of the top 10, finishing in 11th, while Nationwide polesitter Kyle Busch ran 19th. Danica Patrick ran 22 laps and finished 36th.

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Early practice results:

Greg Biffle ran his first practice lap in 38.657 seconds in the early Sprint Cup Series practice for the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. on Saturday, a measure that stood throughout the entire session.

Biffle’s best speed of 186.253 mph topped the leaderboard, while the driver of the No. 16 Ford turned 37 total laps. AJ Allmendinger, third in Friday’s practice, finished just behind Biffle at 186.191.

Kyle Busch, pole-winner Denny Hamlin, and Kurt Busch rounded out the top five, with speeds of 185.342, 185.276, and 185.261, respectively.

Clint Bowyer, tops in Friday’s practice, finished right outside the top five in sixth place with a time of 38.878. Last year’s race-winner Tony Stewart was 14th with a time of 39.223.

Reigning Sprint Cup champion and current points leader Brad Keselowsi, who, despite finishing third in qualifying, will be starting at the back of the pack on Sunday after an engine change, was 18th with a best speed of 182.992.

California native Jimmie Johnson missed the top 10, placing 13th. He turned his second lap in 39.211 with a best speed of 183.622.

Mark Martin ran the most laps — 39.

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Patrick is back-to-back winner of Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie Danica Patrick’s popularity knows no boundaries — or age limits for that matter. For the third time Patrick won for favorite female athlete at Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards.
 
Patrick beat out the Williams sisters — Serena and Venus of tennis fame — and Olympic gold-medal gymnast Gabby Douglas.
 
After hearing she had won, Patrick ran up to the stage and playfully slapped kids’ hands on the way by to accepting the honor.
 
“It felt like I got slimed there,” Patrick said jokingly, a reference to Nickelodeon’s popular show "You Can’t Do That on Television."

“This is a huge award. It means so much when I see you at the race track, and you cheer for me.”
 
This is the second straight year Patrick has won the award. She also won in 2008. Other winners include Candace Parker (2009), Misty May-Treanor (2010) and Lindsey Vonn (2011).

Danica Patrick wins the Kids’ Choice Award for favorite female athlete for the third time.

 

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Auto Club 400 win is third of Nationwide season for Busch

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Hamlin moving on; Logano waiting for call

FONTANA, Calif. — Denny Hamlin says the feud is over. Joey Logano says it isn’t. The only certainty is that the strained relations between the two former teammates continue into this weekend at Auto Club Speedway.

Five days after their altercation following last weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Bristol Motor Speedway, it’s clear Hamlin and Logano still have very different ideas of where things stand between them. Contact between the two on the Tennessee short track left Logano spinning into the wall, and then lunging toward the cockpit of the No. 11 car after the event had concluded. The drivers were separated by crewmen, but later on continued to take shots at one another through the media.

There were no such outbursts Friday in Southern California, where the former Joe Gibbs Racing stable mates both showed off strong cars that qualified toward the front of the field for Sunday’s event. They haven’t talked since last weekend. And it’s clear they view the current status of their relationship quite differently.

"As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to it from here on out."

— Denny Hamlin

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to it from here on out,” Hamlin said after his pole-winning run on the 2-mile track. That didn’t exactly mesh with how Logano saw the situation after qualifying sixth.

“Not until anyone says anything personally to me, no,” said the Penske Racing driver, who moved over from JGR during the offseason. Hamlin did admit, he perhaps shouldn’t have tossed in the barb that closed his comments last weekend, where he quipped that he wasn’t worried about retaliation from Logano because he didn’t see him very often on the race track.

“I probably shouldn’t have given that last little jab at the end,” Hamlin said. “I probably should have just left it alone after the question was asked about what he said. But that’s the only part. As a driver, it’s not up to me to determine where he stands among the elite in NASCAR. I think it’s the fans and the teams who decide that. But I didn’t need to give my opinion on that. I think it’s a low blow.”

Hamlin also reiterated that he bumped Logano intentionally, unhappy about how the Penske driver had raced him earlier in the event. But “I shouldn’t have nudged him in the spot I did,” he said, given that the contact ultimately spun Logano into the wall and left the No. 22 car with rear-end damage.

Still, “I didn’t see it as a huge deal,” Hamlin said. “People at Bristol make contact.”

Logano had a car that seemed capable of contending for the race win, and he’s now competing as a teammate to champion Brad Keselowski. Matt Kenseth, who won two weeks ago at Las Vegas, replaced him at Gibbs. Hamlin surmised all of that played into Logano’s reaction.

“I think a little bit of a factor is — it’s hard for me to speak for him, I’m guessing — he’s got a lot to prove over there,” he said. “Obviously, Matt’s really running well over here. (Logano) had a great race going with a shot to win, and he got taken out. I think that raised his level of frustration.”

Clearly, given the terse answers Logano gave on the subject Friday. Is the dispute behind them? “I haven’t gotten a call or spoken to him,” Logano said. How will he race Hamlin in the future? “The way he raced me,” he added.

Although Hamlin and Logano always seemed to get along when both were at Gibbs, they had their issues on the race track. They just weren’t public — unlike last Sunday’s. “I think I had just as much disappointment in him on the race track as teammates as he had in me,” Hamlin said. Even so, he said he’s not concerned about any recrimination from Logano, even on the short track at Martinsville in two weeks.

“I’m pretty comfortable with how we are and the way we act as professional race car drivers,” he said. “This stuff is always hot and heavy for a couple of weeks, and it goes away. … You’re going to be around the person. We live in the same neighborhood every weekend. You just can’t avoid someone forever, and eventually we’ll talk it out.”

In the meantime, though, Logano is still stewing. “It gives you a little bit of drive. It pisses you off. That’s good. It makes everyone work a little harder,” he said of the frustration of last weekend. And given that he seems to have another strong car in Fontana, it makes him also want to finish the job.

“I’m always looking at a silver lining,” Logano said. “… I’ve had two really, really fast cars. I feel like I have a really fast car here at Auto Club Speedway. I’m looking to make the most out of what I’ve got. That’s where we’ve failed this year, is not getting the finishes we deserve. My goal is to make it happen and get this car into Victory Lane.”

Meanwhile, other drivers have sat back and enjoyed the spectacle of it all, happy to be out of the spotlight themselves.

“I’m so proud of Denny and Joey. They did such a good job,” said Clint Bowyer, who was involved in a tiff of his own with Jeff Gordon late last season at Phoenix. “It was great. It’s just good to see that. Emotions are high at a short track, and things happen, and (it’s) no different than what happened at Phoenix. It’s entertainment. It’s fun to see people get pissed off.”

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Bowyer feels success for manufacturer will come soon at Fontana

FONTANA, Calif. — Clint Bowyer now does more than drive a Toyota — he sells them, too. Earlier this week the Michael Waltrip Racing driver purchased the dealership in his hometown of Emporia, Kan., where he once worked in the body shop. During a visit Thursday to the manufacturer’s Southern California headquarters, he received his official dealer plaque and handbook.

“It was a new endeavor for me,” Bowyer said Friday at Auto Club Speedway, “so it was kind of neat.”

Calling on Toyota’s command central, though, is nothing new for drivers who make the pilgrimage each time NASCAR competes in the region. Bowyer was among a host of drivers from various circuits who appeared Thursday at Toyota Motor Sales’ 19th annual motorsports day in Torrance, where the manufacturer’s U.S. operations are based. And new Toyota driver Matt Kenseth visited the Orange County headquarters of Toyota Racing Development, which builds engines for MWR and Joe Gibbs Racing.

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It’s always a big occasion — 3,000 people work at the Toyota facility in Torrance, where drivers signed autographs for an hour and a half. Michigan International Speedway may be the track Ford and Chevrolet drivers call their own, given that venue’s proximity to Detroit. Teams supported by Toyota feel the same way about Fontana. Now, if only they could win here.

Strangely enough, Auto Club Speedway is one of two tracks — the other being Indianapolis Motor Speedway — where the manufacturer has yet to win on the sport’s highest level. Toyota vehicles have dominated Nationwide Series events here, carrying an eight-race winning streak into this weekend. But the best Toyota drivers have managed in Sprint Cup Series events on the 2-mile track is second, by Kyle Busch in last year’s rain-shortened race won by Tony Stewart.

Bowyer, the manufacturer’s highest-ranking driver in the Sprint Cup standings, believes a breakthrough is on the way.

“I think this is a track that Toyota is going to win at soon,” said last season’s series runner-up, currently fourth in points. “Our speeds are fast with our Toyotas on these big race tracks.  A Toyota won at the only mile-and-a-half we’ve had so far — that speed will carry over, I believe, on this race track. There’s several of us that run well here as teams and drivers and our equipment is certainly second to none, so we’ll be just fine.”

Indeed, it was Kenseth who claimed the opening event on an intermediate track this season, prevailing with his new JGR team two weeks ago on a Las Vegas Motor Speedway track that like Fontana puts a premium on horsepower. Kenseth also enjoyed success here with his previous organization, winning three times in Roush Fenway Fords, most recently in 2009.

But those victories may not necessarily help him now, given that NASCAR’s top series is rolling out a redesigned, more brand-identifiable car that’s competing on tracks this year for the first time. Friday, teams were allotted extra practice time to fine-tune their cars on the 2-mile track. Each of the three manufacturers on the Sprint Cup tour has won at least once through the first four races, leading five-time champion Jimmie Johnson to believe that no carmaker has an edge to this point.

“I haven’t seen anything that would lead me one way or the other,” said Johnson, whose Chevrolet prevailed in the season-opening Daytona 500. “I’ve honestly thought more about teams than I have makes of cars. The Gibbs cars at Bristol, all three were very fast. It’s been more about teams to me than really makes. The MWR cars have ben fast at different times. So it’s been like a grouping of teams than really manufacturers to me.”

Of course, JGR and MWR each field Toyotas, which claimed four of the top seven spots — led by Bowyer — in the first practice session at Fontana. But Chevrolet has been the only manufacturer to win more than once, with Kasey Kahne’s victory last week at Bristol following Johnson’s triumph at Daytona. And driving a Ford, reigning Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski is the only driver to record top-five finishes in every race this season. To Bowyer, that parity is by design, and evident in the new car’s results.

“I think it shows that in NASCAR, the manufactures and everybody did their homework and did a good job preparing these new race cars,” he said. “You’re seeing all three manufacturers running well, having good speed and sharing success, like it should be. There’s no one manufacturer or one team really separating from the next guy. That’s a good product of racing.”

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Sprint Cup Series champion promotes track transportation, visits ESPN, FOX studios

LOS ANGELES — Brad Keselowski’s most famous moment in Southern California involves a shower of sparks, and not the kind a driver sees overhead after reaching Victory Lane. The reigning Sprint Cup champion was still an up-and-coming Nationwide Series driver when he crashed spectacularly at Auto Club Speedway in 2007, skidding along the wall in a four-wheeled fireball that the track would later use in promotional clips.

The accident cracked Keselowski’s helmet, sprained his ankle, and prompted a helicopter ride to an area hospital. But it had even more far-reaching effects — after that incident Keselowski started slipping a cell phone into his uniform pocket, a practice he continued until being fined by NASCAR for using Twitter under a red flag at Phoenix last year.

“I didn’t have my wallet, didn’t have my phone, didn’t have anything,” Keselowski remembered Thursday during a promotional stop in downtown L.A. “Next thing I knew, I was at Loma Linda Hospital. Go through all the procedures, they check you out, and they’re like, ‘You’re good.’ I’m like, ‘OK, now what?’ I didn’t have any clothes because I was wearing a firesuit. Didn’t have a wallet, didn’t have a phone. They were like, ‘All right, good luck.’ I felt like Jason Bourne. I don’t know who I am, where I’m at, and I don’t have any money or clothes. After that, I kept my phone on me until I got fined last year.”

"I want to be right. I don’t like to not have my facts right."

— Brad Keselowski

And yet, Keselowski doesn’t need a mobile device to show his worth as one of NASCAR’s greatest communicators, which he did Thursday in the entertainment capital of the world. When it came time to find a driver to stand outside L.A.’s iconic Union Station and talk up both Sunday’s race in Fontana as well as a rail program designed to ease the commute, Auto Club Speedway president Gillian Zucker had a clear choice: the champion who wowed everyone with a passionate and extemporaneous speech at the awards ceremony last year.

“He’s fantastic, for so many reasons,” Zucker said. “He’s extremely well-spoken, ands he’s very authentic. The things that he says, they’re real. And that’s why he’s so funny. He’s candid, he’s inquisitive, and there are so many things about him that make him perfect for interaction with the community, and I think that’s why he’s so beloved by so many fans.”

Such admiration was certainly the case that day, when Los Angeles City Councilman José Huizar declared “Auto Club Speedway Day in L.A.,” complete with a proclamation delivered via the track’s show car to the plaza at Union Station. For the city, it’s an effort to promote public transportation via a MetroLink system that stops at the race track. For the speedway, which sits 40 miles east of downtown, it’s another way to reinforce the bonds between the facility and the spires of downtown L.A.

“There are times when people say, ‘Where is that?’” Zucker said, referring to the location of her race track. “So for us, it makes it very easy for people to understand we’re that close to downtown L.A.”

It certainly helped that Keselowski, game as always, was there to reinforce the message. “A wise man once told me, ‘Racing’s fun, traffic ain’t’,” he told a small crowd of fans and local media gathered outside the station. In more ways than one, he’s come a long way from that young, relatively unproven Nationwide driver who put up a fight when emergency workers tried to strap him to a backboard following that 2007 crash in his No. 88 Navy car with a Seabees paint scheme.

“When I got out of the car, I got out a little slowly because I sprained my ankle,” he said. “They wanted to put me on a backboard, and I got out on my own. They were ready to cut the roof off, and I’m like, ‘Just give me a second.’ Literally, I wrecked and came to a stop and they were there pulling on belts. I’m like ‘Whoa, whoa, I can do this a lot faster by myself.’”

Then, Keselowski was yet to win a race at NASCAR’s national level, a breakthrough that wouldn’t come until the following season at Nashville. Back then, he was only just beginning to find secure footing in his racing career and with interviewers as his profile increased by virtue of his association with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team. What if this less-experienced 2007 Brad had been asked to stand in front of a train station and address a cluster of fans, media members and public transportation officials?

Sitting in the back of an SUV bound for appearances at ESPN’s L.A. studios, Keselowski laughs at the notion. “It would have been a lot different,” he said. “Maybe I’m just experienced or getting old, or maybe I just feel like I have a lot less to lose. At that time in the sport, I was in a position where I felt like every moment was going to make or break my career. Now I’m a little older and a little wiser and more established, and I don’t feel that way.”

That much is evident by the way the 29-year-old Keselowski handles promotional responsibilities, which are becoming as second nature to him as driving the race car. At Union Station, he was consistently on-message without even seeming it, disarming everyone with humor. Zucker asked him if the new Generation-6 car could go six-wide on a track that bills itself as the home of five-wide racing. “If there are five cars in front of me,” Keselowski responded, “there will be six-wide racing.”

It was the same at ESPN, where Keselowski consistently won over an even savvier crowd. Preparing to appear on the network’s “SportsNation” program, Keselowski sat in a room researching topics while the flurry of pre-production went on around him. Football star Simeon Rice walked by. Comedian Rob Schneider needed a green room. Actor Gerard Butler’s security man was downstairs. And there was Keselowski, as unassuming as ever, fingers working overtime on his iPhone as he searched for information on a recent NFL rule change.

“I want to be right,” he told a producer. “I don’t like to not have my facts right.” His determination made one thing clear: the guy doesn’t go into a situation unprepared. The reason he can give a spectacular speech without a teleprompter at the awards ceremony? The reason he can hit exactly the right notes at an event promoting commercial rail use? The reason he can win over a boisterous “SportsNation” crowd, all why doing his best to flirt with co-host Charissa Thompson at the same time?

Preparation. By the time he appears on the program, Keselowski is ready for topics ranging from the Miami Heat’s winning streak to concussions in the NFL to the relationship between golfer Tiger Woods and Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn. He’s informed and funny, and before long the crowd is chanting his name in a chorus of “Brad! Brad! Brad!”

Later, in a taped one-on-one interview with anchor Stan Verrett that will air on “SportsCenter,” it’s more of the same, even though the topics are much more familiar: his championship celebration last year in Homestead, his strong start to the season, the Gen-6 car and his use of Twitter. “Nailed it,” a producer tells him afterward. An assistant tells him everyone at ESPN was blown away by how witty he was.

Keselowski offers a mild correction. “I was prepared,” he said. “Witty makes it seem like I was winging it. Preparation makes you seem witty.”

And with that, it’s back in the SUV — this time for a trip over to the area’s FOX television affiliate. Although Keselowski seems to enjoy it all, there’s clearly a greater purpose, and it goes back to the message of leadership he preached in his champion’s speech in Las Vegas last year. He once flew over greater Los Angeles in a helicopter, bound for the hospital. Now Brad Keselowski glides through it, at the vanguard of his sport.

“I don’t have any qualms about being a person who helps lead the sport forward. Not at all,” he said. “I don’t think it’s just a role for me, it’s a role for everyone in the this sport. We should all work to push it forward. It’s in our own interest to do it. And it’s part of our legacy once we’re no longer a part of it.”

Brad Keselowski sits in the audience for "American Idol" on FOX, Wednesday night in Los Angeles

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Biffle joins 2012 champion at back of field for Auto Club 400

FONTANA, Calif. — Before Friday’s practice session at Auto Club Speedway, Brad Keselowski said it might be a good thing that NASCAR Sprint Cup Series engines are being stressed by higher speeds and high sustained RPMs.

In retrospect, after his No. 2 Penske Racing Ford team changed engines before Friday’s qualifying session, Keselowski might want to retract that opinion.

There’s no doubt that NASCAR’s new Gen-6 race cars are fast. At a two-mile track such as Auto Club, however, sustained speed can create potential problems for the power plants.

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"There is no doubt that this car is so fast that we’re carrying more speed than we’ve ever carried pretty much at every track," Keselowski said before practice. "That isn’t a bad thing, but it puts a lot of stress on the engines. There’s a certain gear ratio we use to dictate what RPM band the cars are in, and, to this point, we’ve been using last year’s model, which has put more stress on the engines with more speed.

"Maybe that’s a good thing, too. I don’t know. I think it pushes the teams to make their stuff a little better, and that’s what this sport is about, constant evolution."

Two hours later, the team was changing engines. Early in the practice session, the engine in Greg Biffle‘s No. 16 Ford Fusion had blown, for an engine change in that car, too.

In compliance with NASCAR’s one-engine rule, both Keselowski and Biffle must start from the rear of the field on Sunday. The Cup points leader and defending series champion, Keselowski will face a formidable challenge as he attempts to record his fifth straight top-five finish to start the season.

Recipe to experiment
With NASCAR’s Gen-6 race car making its debut this year, and with five distinctly different race tracks opening the schedule, it should be no surprise that race teams are still trying to discover ideal setups for their cars.

In the case of five-time champion Jimmie Johnson, a win in the Daytona 500 and a third-place standing in the points provide more latitude for experimentation than most other drivers enjoy. That’s not to say though, that working with radically different setups isn’t endemic to the entire Hendrick Motorsports organization.

"We’re still on the fence right now, and we have things going on with the front suspension on the car where we’ve been racing one way, we’re considering another way, and we’ll change it in and out during practice," Johnson said Friday. "Even the rear spring rates and such — just trying to get that under control with what the attitude of the car wants to be.

"We don’t have a deep notebook yet. At Bristol (last Sunday), I would say,  even though it’s a small track, would be probably the best example of all four (Hendrick Motorsports) teams going in different directions."

Johnson ran well at Bristol before he blew a right front tire and smacked the outside wall late in the race. Teammate Kasey Kahne, running a significantly different setup, won at Bristol for the first time.

"I felt like Kasey and I were pretty competitive throughout the race — and he certainly won — but our front ends on our race cars couldn’t have been more different," Johnson said. "They were polar opposites, but we were both very fast and competitive all day long.

"With this new car, there are still quite a few things to sort out, and so, yeah, one of our four cars at least will race with a big unknown just because… why not? It’s that time of the year to explore and experiment."

Inked up
Kasey Kahne will leave California with something he didn’t have when he got here — a tattoo.

A photo on Kahne’s Twitter account revealed the new ink job below the driver’s left bicep. The tattoo read "RDP/KSK," the initials of Kahne’s two late grandfathers, Richard Peterson and Kenny Kahne.

"I’ve thought about it," said Kahne, who got the tattoo from renowned artist Tim Hendricks. "For a while there I wasn’t really into tattoos, but then over the last… probably a year, I’ve thought about it, and that’s been really the only thing that I wanted, up to this point."

The tattoo was Kahne’s first, and its purpose was to remind him of the good times he had with his grandfathers.

"I’m glad I did it," he said. "I saw it this morning when I woke up, and I was like, ‘Man, I like that…’ For now, that’s really it. I just enjoy the part of good memories, lots of memories. I’ll see it all the time now and think more about some of those memories — I like what I did."