So who has the best shot at scoring a Chase-boosting victory in Sunday's Pepsi 500 at the California, er, Auto Club Speedway? Let's look at the candidates, shall we? I've got 'em ranked by best to worst chance to win this weekend's race, based on career stats, NASCAR's Driver Rating and how they did when we last raced there the week after the Daytona 500. Current points ranking is in parentheses.
* Won by non-Chaser Matt Kenseth
** Driver Rating has been compiled by NASCAR since 2005
The French Connection
Been getting a lot of e-mail/tweet questions about J.C. France, who was arrested early Thursday morning on DUI and drug possession charges.
A few points of clarification here. Yes, he is a member of the France family, founders and operators of NASCAR, and its track ownership arm, the International Speedway Corporation. His grandfather was NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. and his first cousin is current league CEO and chairman Brian France. No, he is not involved in league management, but his father is Jim France, longtime NASCAR and ISC executive and founder of the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series, which J.C. has competed in since its inception. And yes, he has been suspended immediately and indefinitely in accordance with the NASCAR drug policy. The league said in a Thursday statement that he has been "treated like any other competitor."
Before his arrest, France was best known in the racing community for this little moment of fun during a 2006 Grand Am race in Mexico City.
The 'Why We Call Richard Petty The King' Fact of the Week
His Royal Fastness had been retired five years when the Auto Club Speedway came online in 1997, but he'd already made his mark on SoCal. Petty made a total of 54 Cup Series starts in California, all within a few minutes' drive of where ACS sits now.
He started all nine races run at the Indianapolis-cloned Ontario Motor Speedway, picking up four top-5s, two poles and clinching his historic seventh Cup title in the 1979 season finale. The King also made 45 starts on the road course of the Riverside International Raceway, winning five times and racking up 27 top-10s between -- get this -- his first RIS start in 1963 and the last event run there in 1988.
Old School is In School
For those of you who are still bitter about Rockingham losing its Cup date to California, you can stage your very own little protest this weekend. The ARCA RE/MAX Series will drop its final green flag of the season at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, and a couple of future NASCAR stars will be battling for the title.
Parker Kligerman sits second in points, just 15 markers behind Justin Lofton. Kligerman is the lead development driver for Penske Racing and just last weekend stunned the racing world by winning the pole for his first-ever NASCAR Nationwide Series event. Lofton is in Toyota's talent pipeline, driving for Eddie Sharp Racing, the team that fielded Camrys for current Red Bull Racing driver Scott Speed in 2008.
For more on Sunday's race, including ticket info, visit the Rockingham Speedway's Web site. Hey, if only a small percentage of people who have emailed me over the years screaming "I will go back to Rockingham if they have racing again!" actually showed up, then my boy Andy Hillenburg would be in business. I wrote about his efforts to revive The Rock in The Mag back in July.
For Your Viewing Pleasure
If you didn't already think Kevin Harvick was out of Richard Childress Racing at the end of 2010, watch Marty Smith's excellent sit-down interview with Happy from this week. You'll realize that the 2007 Daytona 500 champ not only has one foot out the door, he probably already has a U-Haul parked behind the race shop.
For Your Viewing Pleasure II
On Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET, immediately before the Pepsi 500 from the California Speedway, ABC will air a one-hour version of "Together: The Hendrick Motorsports Story." The world premiere event was held in Charlotte last week and the film, produced by old co-workers at the NASCAR Media Group, has been receiving rave reviews. The full 90-minute version comes out on DVD on Oct. 31. See the trailer here. It's worth watching if only for the never-before-aired footage of Tim Richmond being, well, Tim Richmond, when a very blonde race fan innocently strolls by during an interview.
Season tweetings
Stanton Barrett is an on-again-off-again NASCAR racer and full-time Hollywood stuntman. On Thursday afternoon he tweeted from his current office, the Boston set of Ben Affleck's new movie "The Town." Here's what he wrote: stantonbarrett: "Getting ready to T-bone car into eric norris my buddy. Weird way to treat our friends isn't it!" (And yes, he's referring to Chuck Norris' son.)
Ryan McGee
