Fearless Forecast: Will Auto Club Speedway Be The Home Of Hendrick Or The House of Roush

It should come as no surprise that any discussion about who will win the Auto Club 500 tomorrow has to start and maybe even end with Hendrick Motorsports and Roush- Fenway Racing. In each of the last two seasons, these two organizations have dominated here with wins by Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson twice. Jeff Gordon (HMS) is Auto Club Speedway’s all-time race winner, plus Greg Biffle (Roush) and Kyle Busch (while at HMS) have also picked up wins at Fontana.

You have to start there, though it is intriguing to look at the starting grid and see a number of dark horse possibilities: Kurt Busch (a Fontana winner as well), his brother Kyle qualified top 10. Then we’ve got some names of guys who WILL win a race or two sooner or later: David Reutimann, Scott Speed and A.J. Allmendinger all had strong qualifying efforts.

Can you call Tony Stewart a dark horse? Well, considering Stewart-Haas is for all intents and purposes a new team, I suppose you could. Oddly enough, for all he’s accomplished, Smoke has never won here.

If you wanted a truly fearless forecast, you could pick any of these guys as a winner and not embarrass yourself.

Pole-sitter Brian Vickers will move to the back of the pack with an engine change. Given that scenario, Jimmie Johnson is now actually starting out front. Johnson has been pretty close to flawless all weekend- to the surprise of no one. Gordon qualified 6th, and he’s been good off the truck since Day One for 2009, confirming what most have believed- that the Rainbow Warrior is far from washed up. Mark Martin makes an intriguing dark horse pick and he’s also won in a Roush Ford.

So far….Dale Jr. doesn’t look like much of a factor, and he’s never been real good here for reasons I can’t fathom.

Jamie Mc Murray’s qualifying in 3rd continues to fortify his case for staying with Roush- Fenway when the season ends. Jamie Mac finished last season nicely, looked good during Speed Weeks and was a factor before he got collected by the infamous Earnhardt- Vickers flap. Greg Biffle is also very much in the mix with a good qualifying run. Everybody keeps expecting David Ragan to break out somewhere. I’m not sure I’m on that bandwagon just yet, but those in the know are really high on this kid. One can;t read much into the qualifying runs of defending Auto Club winner Carl Edwards and last week’s Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth. Matt the Brat has never been much of a qualifier, and Edwards will also be just fine when the green flag waves.

If you through the luck factor out the window, and you just look at pure performance- you have to go with a driver from one of these top teams. Psychologically- Edwards will be gung-ho to get what many believe will be his championship run going, while Johnson will be jonesing to show that his lackluster Daytona run was a fluke or a mere by-product of plate racing.

It’s not that fearless of a forecast, but I’m going with Jimmie Johnson. Far too many times, I’ve seen what I believe will unfold: Johnson gets his car off the hauler and he hauls butt ALL WEEKEND LONG. Going against Jimmie Johnson is like going against the New England or going against the Boston Red Sox…..

….you can, but it’s not a smart way to go.

PHOTO CREDITS- Biffle at finish line by Walter G. Arce, Jimmie Johnson by Jimmy5, Edwards blackflip at Auto Club by rebilasphoto. These photogrpaphs and more may be found at flickr.com.