Congratulations to Ryan Newman, Roger Penske and Kurt Busch on all having a huge part in winning the 50^th running of the Daytona 500. This wouldn’t have happened without all of these people playing an intricate part in the whole scheme of racing at a restrictor plate track.

This week we head out to California for the running of the Auto Club 500. My pick to win this week’s race is Carl Edwards. No Carl has never won at California before but he has come way too close during his short career. Granted the Hendrick teams were ahead of all others last year with the new car but if I know Jack Roush he spent a lot of sleepless nights during the off-season figuring out what he needed to do to get his cars to perform better this year.

Jimmie Johnson will give Carl everything he can handle this weekend and try to improve on a disappointing performance last week at Daytona. Jimmie won here last fall and finished 3^rd during the spring race. The thing Jimmie has that no other driver has is Chad Knaus.

Matt Kenseth has won the last 2 spring races at California. Matt has a new crew chief this season in Chip Bolin. This won’t matter very much as Chip was Matt’s interim crew chief last spring at California when he won. This was due to Robbie Reiser being suspended by NASCAR for the first 4 races last season after failing qualifying inspections at Daytona.

This race will be Toyota’s big test to see how far they have come since last season. Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch are probably the best shots for the Toyota teams to get a win this weekend. I personally think that Kyle has a better shot than Tony in California just because of how he runs on this type of track. Kyle got his first ever Cup win here.

A few years back Greg Biffle was dominant at California but he only sealed the deal once. The other times he always had some kind of mechanical failure that kept him from winning and lapping most of the field. If Greg is going to breakout with Roush Racing this will be his year. If not I think you will see him move on when his contract comes up.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has had his ups and downs at California but this is a new year for him with a new team. If Junior has what it takes it will show this season. I thought it was a bad move by Tony Eury Jr. to leave Dale stay out late in the race last week for track position when everyone else was getting tires. It’s Daytona Tony, handling is everything and Junior had a great handling car all week. I think this might have caused Junior another Daytona 500 win.

Ryan Newman got his first win in a long time and it was a big one last week. He and Kurt Busch seem to gel together on the track no matter where they go and they looked like real teammates last week. Now will the Rocket race all year or will he go back on that pole-winning binge he was on earlier in his career. I think it might be a little bit of both this year.

Jeff Gordon was on a tear of top 5 and top 10 finishes last year and now this year he is one for one with mechanical failures. It’s way too early to say that this could be a long season for Jeff and this weekend will be big in preventing that. A 500-mile race at California is going to put a lot of strain on engines and we should be able to see which teams are at the top of their games early in the season.

Yahoo Picks for California

Group A

Carl Edwards (starter)

Jimmie Johnson

Group B

Kyle Busch (starter)

Greg Biffle (starter)

Jamie McMurray

Kasey Kahne

Group C

Sam Hornish Jr. (starter)

Joe Nemechek

Top 5 Overall at California

1. Carl Edwards

2. Jimmie Johnson

3. Kyle Busch

4. Tony Stewart

5. Greg Biffle

Dark Horse: Jamie McMurray

Stay Away From: Casey Mears

As always you can Email me with any questions, comments or suggestions at gutsamaniac@hotmail.com. Good luck once again this week.

Fantasy Nascar

Auto Club 500 Preview

Joe Nemechek