Fairly uneventful qualifying and practice session on the left coast, the only unknown will be if the rains do come tonight and wash the rubber off the track. Here at Fontana the track is relatively easy to pass (minus the aero-tight issues when you get behind a fellow competitor), so I'm not placing too much weight on qualifying position or pit selection with the long and wide pit road.
Let's look at the numbers:
Overall Average Times of the Noteables from P2:
A-List:
Edwards - 40.50 (18 laps)
Kenseth - 40.81 (24)
Johnson - 40.84 (29)
Stewart - 40.85 (25)
B-List:
Martin - 40.58 (30 Laps)
Bowyer - 40.64 (28)
Kahne - 40.71 (12...and brushed the wall)
Vickers - 40.75 (28)
Montoya - 40.76 (17)
Truex Jr - 40.77 (22)
Logano - 40.78 (25)
Ambrose - 40.80 (24)
C-List:
Menard - 40.64 (20 Laps)
Ragan - 40.91 (31)
Smith - 40.92 (19)
Bayne - 40.92 (16)
And 10-Lap Averages from P2:
1 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 1 10 177.941 13
2 39 Ryan Newman 19 28 177.829 15
3 33 Clint Bowyer 1 10 177.712 20
4 48 Jimmie Johnson 1 10 177.700 12
5 14 Tony Stewart 1 10 177.639 6
6 18 Kyle Busch 1 10 177.561 4
7 27 Paul Menard 1 10 177.398 19
8 5 Mark Martin 20 29 177.297 7
9 43 A J Allmendinger 1 10 177.253 21
10 31 Jeff Burton 20 29 176.494 8
11 83 Brian Vickers 6 15 176.054 18
12 11 Denny Hamlin 18 27 175.346 2
13 2 Brad Keselowski 17 26 174.563 27
P3 Overall Lap Averages of Noteables:
A-List:
Johnson - 40.63 (32 Laps)
Stewart - 40.66 (36)
Edwards - 40.67 (27)
Kenseth - 40.80 (32)
B-List:
Martin - 40.56 (27 Laps)
Bowyer - 40.61 (28)
Vickers - 40.68 (26)
Burton - 40.74 (43)
Truex Jr - 40.77 (35)
Kahne - 40.78 (26)
Logano - 40.85 (38)
Montoya - 40.93 (29)
Ambrose - 41.08 (32)
C-List:
Bayne - 40.63 (24)
Ragan - 40.69 (28)
Menard - 40.78 (35)
Smith - 40.99 (33)
And P3 10-Lap Averages
Rank Car# Driver From Lap To Lap Avg Speed Overall Rank
1 14 Tony Stewart 1 10 177.794 2
2 33 Clint Bowyer 1 10 177.779 7
3 48 Jimmie Johnson 14 23 177.616 13
4 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 1 10 177.348 18
5 31 Jeff Burton 1 10 177.305 10
6 24 Jeff Gordon 19 28 176.895 5
7 11 Denny Hamlin 25 34 176.871 12
8 56 Martin Truex Jr. 25 34 176.650 25
9 18 Kyle Busch 20 29 176.603 6
10 27 Paul Menard 15 24 176.524 8
11 39 Ryan Newman 30 39 176.486 11
12 20 Joey Logano 1 10 176.445 26
13 42 Juan Pablo Montoya 11 20 176.389 28
14 13 Casey Mears 22 31 176.122 19
15 00 David Reutimann 11 20 175.539 27
16 9 Marcos Ambrose 23 32 175.415 29
17 78 Regan Smith 23 32 175.213 23
18 22 Kurt Busch 14 23 175.205 30
19 47 Bobby Labonte 18 27 175.188 32
20 34 David Gilliland 8 17 175.072 33
A-LIST:
Carl Edwards seems satisfied with his ride and I think he'll be one of the contenders for the win come the end of the afternoon. Edwards is a little bit hard to pin point as he did not make any long runs (did not run a 10-lap consecutive stretch at any point). He did complain of a vibration, but that is nothing new and a bit of a recurring driveshaft issue with the RFR Fords. Honestly I'm surprised the Ford's haven't show the dominance they did at Las Vegas.
Tony Stewart is my other "man to beat" come Sunday. He's got a great car and was the fastest car across the all important 10-lap averages. This team knows they need clean air and is not afraid to use strategy to get out front. I like the 14 to be my potential race winner.
Jimmie Johnson seems fair in practice, they were all over the map trying different setups and didn't really hit on what they liked until the end of P3. I still like the 48 as a Top 5 car, but I don't see him as a race winner. I'd start Edwards or Stewart over the 48 this week.
Kevin Harvick and the entire RCR crew has been the biggest surprise to me this weekend, I'm placing the 29 behind the 3 drivers listed above and Harvick should be solidly inside the Top 10 all day.
Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth both have struggled surprisingly here this weekend. Neither have showed much speed and don't appear to be race winners as I thought they could be coming into this weekend. After wasting his primary car, Kyle Busch has rebounded nicely and he and team mate Denny Hamlin should be Top 10 (if those pesky JGR engine problems don't continue to pop up). Kurt Busch is junk and he even commented in practice that "we'll be racing for 25th"...yikes.
A-LIST RANKS: 14, 99, 48, 29, 18, 11, 17, 16
B-LIST:
Welcome to 2011 Clint Bowyer, the 33 is back on top of the B-List as I suspect he will be often this season. The car was outstanding in practice and he should be solidly inside the Top 10 with his team mate Harvick.
Mark Martin is putting up fantastic numbers all day long and seems happy with his ride. This is another great opportunity to get a Martin start out of the way early in the season. And as we noted earlier in the week, no one is better on getting fuel mileage out of a car than Martin.
Ryan Newman is having another solid weekend, he's right in the "pack" of B-Listers so I am not sure you should roll out a start with Newman this week. His runs are comparable to Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Brian Vickers, and Juan Pablo Montoya. All of which have been solid on the charts and seem to have cars that should be inside the Top 15. I do like getting a start out of Earnhardt Jr and Montoya here as this is their "style" of track and they have the most up-side potential out of this group.
Kasey Kahne has been a disappointment. After brushing the wall in P2 the team has been playing catch up just to get back to where they started the weekend. Jamie McMurray has been all over the map this weekend and I don't see him much inside the Top 20. My Marcos Ambrose pick was...a bust, should run around the Top 15-20 but I really thought with the Ford FR9 power he'd have a shot to turn some heads this weekend.
B-LIST RANKS: 33-5-88-42-39-31-83-4-9-1-00-43-56
C-LIST:
Paul Menard is once again solid but its time to save the 27 for greener pastures. David Ragan and Trevor Bayne are both having impressive weekends and should finish right with, if not ahead of the 27 this week. Although the Fords aren't dominate like I thought they would be, they are still running strong and they are the way to go in the C-List. Regan Smith doesn't have the speed over the long runs which is going to prove troublesome here at California so the 78 gets benched this week.
C-LIST RANKS: 6-21-27-78-47
For our lineup, we're rolling with the following:
A-LIST:
TONY STEWART (9 Starts Remaining) - For me this is a coinflip situation as I feel the 99 and 14 are going to be 1-2 this weekend, but I'm going to roll with the 14 as the 99 red hot momentum has to end at some point, and with the Ford dominance not as prominent as I thought it would be, I'm going to gamble with Smoke this weekend to edge out the win.
Bench - Carl Edwards (7 Starts Remaining)
B-LIST:
MARK MARTIN (8 Starts Remaining) - See above for all the info put this one is a pretty simple plug-n-play for me, next!
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA (9 Starts Remaining) - I'm not thrilled on my B-List choices of 42, 4, and 9 but I'm going with Montoya as this is his kind of track. Added to the fact that he can hopefully lead a lap early for bonus points and Brian Pattie likes to use strategy to keep Montoya up front, I'm going with the 42 to round out by B-List
Bench - Kasey Kahne (8 Starts Remaining) and Marcos Ambrose (9 Starts Remaining)
C-LIST:
TREVOR BAYNE (9 Starts Remaining) - Bayne is a strategy move here, as Ragan might end up a spot or two better than Ragan. But we've got limited opportunities to use Bayne this season, and we need to get starts out of him. With Menard not being the dominate force of the C-List and Bayne's performance right on par with Ragan, this is the perfect opportunity to sneak in a Bayne start.
Bench - David Ragan (8 Starts Remaining)
As always, check the Yahoo message board for our live link to our race day chat for your last minute questions to be answered!
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