SPORTS
February 22, 2010 | By Jim Peltz
Another year, another poor finish for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Auto Club Speedway. The most popular driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series had hoped to reverse his record at the Fontana track Sunday after his second-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500. But after starting 27th on the 43-car grid for the Auto Club 500 and climbing to 21st early in the race, Earnhardt was penalized for speeding on pit road, dropping him deep into...
SPORTS
February 19, 2010 | By Jim Peltz
NASCAR is back in Fontana, which means Jimmie Johnson will toss and turn at night. "When I go to California, I know the night before I'm not going to sleep well," the reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion said of this weekend's race at Auto Club Speedway. "I haven't for the last eight years." That's because Johnson and his rival drivers view Sunday's Auto Club 500, the second race after last weekend's season-opening Daytona 500, as the first true yardstick of how their cars stack up against each other.
SPORTS
February 18, 2010 | By Jim Peltz
Danica Patrick is as curious as everyone else to see how well she performs in her second NASCAR stock car race Saturday. Patrick made her debut last weekend in NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series, but her race ended after a car wreck just past the halfway point on the high-banked Daytona International Speedway. Her next race is the Stater Bros. 300 at the much flatter, two-mile Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. "I don't know what to expect [at Fontana]," Patrick said in an interview, adding that she and her crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., "haven't really talked about it too much" ahead of her first practice here on Friday.
SPORTS
February 12, 2010 | By Jim Peltz
Melanie Troxel made drag racing history in 2008 when she became the first woman to have won races in both of the NHRA's premier classes, funny cars and top fuel. But a year later, Troxel couldn't be found in either class. A victim of the economic woes afflicting the National Hot Rod Assn. and motor sports, Troxel's funny car was parked in 2009 for lack of sponsorship. Now she's back, thanks to a deal with In-N-Out Burger that's enabling Troxel to race in eight funny car races in the NHRA's Full Throttle Series, starting with this weekend's Kragen O'Reilly Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona.
SPORTS
February 11, 2010 | By Tania Ganguli
He drove a backup car that hadn't taken any laps of practice. His crew chief mixed up the schedule and showed up uncharacteristically late to the morning drivers meeting. You'd forgive the No. 48 team for being a bit discombobulated going into the Gatorade Duels at Daytona. But they weren't. Not even a little bit. Four-time defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson won the first 150-mile qualifying race Thursday afternoon by a margin of .005 seconds. Kasey Kahne won the second race, breaking up the Hendrick Motorsports party.
SPORTS
February 7, 2010 | By Jim Peltz
Danica Patrick proved this much Saturday: Her desire to drive stock cars is not a novelty act. Despite a collision with another car that briefly dropped her deep in the field and her unfamiliarity with the famed "drafting" at Daytona International Speedway, Patrick drove an impressive race and stormed back to finish sixth in her first stock car race. "I had so much fun in a race car today," an ebullient Patrick told a media swarm that greeted her in the garage after the race.