DRIVER NOTES & QUOTES: Pepsi Max 400 at California

KYLE BUSCH'S APPROACH HEADING INTO CALIFORNIA: “Each week, you have to put the last week behind you and look ahead, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. I do that if I won the previous week, or if we didn’t have the kind of finish we were hoping for. As for the upcoming races, I feel really good about a lot of the tracks coming up because they are all places we ran pretty well at the first time around this season. As everyone knows, Talladega is such a wild card. But, we ran well in Charlotte in the spring – top-five, I think. We ran well at Martinsville before a late caution hurt us a bit on strategy. We had strong runs at Texas and Phoenix, but not the finish we wanted in Phoenix. So, with the exception of Talladega, where anything can happen, we have some good tracks coming up and, hopefully, we can bring home some strong finishes.”

KASEY KAHNE ON COMPARING CALIFORNIA WITH OTHER TRACKS: “It’s hard to compare tracks to each other. I think California was built to be like Michigan but they’re pretty different tracks. California doesn’t have a lot of banking but it is a pretty fast track. I think, like every track, getting the car to handle in the corners is the biggest thing. It’s a two-mile track and the front and back stretches are pretty long.”

CLINT BOWYER ON SUCCESS OF RCR TEAMS AT CALIFORNIA: “Yeah, we were very good out there for the spring race, so, hopefully, we can carry that on. It’s one of those hit or miss tracks for me, but coming off that spring race, I have a lot more excitement. I think we have a lot better equipment and our cars have changed a bunch since then. I think we can improve a lot.”

CLINT BOWYER CHASSIS CHOICE: Bowyer will pilot chassis No. 324 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. This is a brand new No. 33 racer that will be put through its first paces in this weekend’s 400 miler.

JEFF BURTON ON CONFIDENCE FROM FINISHING THIRD IN FEBRUARY AT CALIFORNIA: “It certainly does. We ran really well in the second half of the race. The first half of the race we struggled a little bit with handling and Todd (Berrier,crew chief) kept working on the Caterpillar Chevy and made it better. I got busted for speeding on pit road and, for some reason, that turned our day around. We took off right after that. We had to restart last and got up to sixth quickly. So, that definitely gives me confidence. Fontana is a demanding race track but it’s fun to drive and I think we carry the momentum over to this weekend’s race.”

BURTON CHASSIS CHOICE: Burton will pilot chassis No. 317 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. Built new this season, this is the same Caterpillar Chevrolet Burton drove to an eighth-place finish at Pocono Raceway in August and to a 24th-place result at Michigan International Speedway just two weeks later after being involved in a wrong place, wrong time incident with under 50 laps remaining.

KEVIN HARVICK ON THE CHASE HEADING INTO CALIFORNIA: “We feel good about where we are right now. We had a great car at Kansas and finished third. That’s what got us here. We have been consistent and had solid top-five finishes all year. So, we just have to keep doing those things, keep our cars in contention running up front, lead some laps and grab those bonus points when we can, and we’ll see where we are when we get to Homestead.”

HARVICK CHASSIS CHOICE: Harvick will pilot Chassis No. 288 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. Earlier in the year, this Chevrolet scored a win at Michigan International Speedway in August. Additionally, Harvick scored runner-up finishes at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and at Auto Club Speedway, finished ninth at Atlanta Motor Speedway in March, and finished seventh at Dover International Speedway in May. The Shell-Pennzoil team raced this chassis three times in the latter part of the 2009 season, finishing 18th at Charlotte Motor Speedway, fifth at Texas Motor Speedway and third at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

JAMIE McMURRAY CHASSIS CHOICE: Chassis #1016. The No. 1 team will bring chassis #1016 to Auto Club Speedway this weekend. This chassis was first used a month ago at Atlanta where McMurray qualified 12th and finished 15th.

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA CHASSIS CHOICE: Chassis #1003. Pattie and the No. 42 Target team are bringing chassis #1003 to Auto Club Speedway this weekend marking the fourth time this chassis has been used in 2010. The team last used this chassis at Atlanta in September where Montoya started eighth and finished ninth. Montoya also ran this chassis at Chicagoland where he qualified 10th and finished 16th and in the Coke 600 where he finished 38th due to an on-track incident.

CARL EDWARDS ON ATLANTA: “We had a really good run at Kansas and the strength of the Roush Fenway organization is as good as it’s ever been. We’re going to California which is a track we’ve had a lot of success at, and we’ve run very well as a team there. This is a track on the Chase schedule that I feel very confident at and feel like we have a great shot at a win there.”

EDWARDS CHASSIS CHOICE: Chassis: RK-702 Most recently raced at Atlanta where he finished second.

MATT KENSETH ON RACING AT FONTANA: “Fontana is typically a good track for me and the No. 17 team, so it’s good to travel there this weekend, especially after a strong run at Kansas last week. I really feel like we’ve been steadily improving on our program lately, so heading to Fontana where our team has run well at in the past, should hopefully mean another great run. Our Crown Royal team is focused on taking it one week at a time in order to make sure we get the finishes we deserve. Fontana is a down force track where aerodynamics comes into play, but our Roush Fenway organization really prepares for these kinds of tracks, so I’m looking forward to Sunday’s race.”

KENSETH CHASSIS CHOICE: Primary: RK-707 (brand new chassis).

GREG BIFFLE ON CALIFORNIA: “I really can’t wait to get to California. I love that track partly because we’ve had success there but also because it’s a lot of fun and it is fast and challenging. A lot of strategy comes into play at California and that usually makes it interesting too. I also really like going out west because I get to see my family. My mom usually comes to most of the west coast races and it’s always good to get to spend time with her. Last weekend’s race was a pretty big win for this team. It would be great to make it two in a row this weekend in California.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON ON BEING ABLE TO EXCEL AT CALIFORNIA “As a driver you always have to search around on the race track and try to find a line or some type of rhythm that will help the balance of your race car. That’s what we do. I feel that growing up on the dirt (off-road racing) really helped me with that skill set. You don’t have a chance to come in and adjust on your car or work on it and it a lot of cases on the dirt, especially in the stuff I raced, all you worried about was going in a straight line over jumps. The corners, you had to figure that out as a driver. I think I fall back on that experience a lot. Last weekend was great for our team because last-minute decisions before qualifying gave us the speed we needed to win the race. Decisions that we made Saturday night in the motor home lot working on our race car, gave us the car to win the race on Sunday. So, I’m very proud that amongst the pressure last second, we made the right decisions and made the right calls and won the race. It was a good weekend for our race team; a good lift for us.”

Primary Car History – Chassis No. 580
Date Event Start Finish
02/28/2010 Las Vegas 20 1
04/19/2010 Texas 4 2
05/22/2010 All-Star 7 13
06/13/2010 Michigan 3 6
08/21/2010 Bristol 1 35

Backup Car History – Chassis No. 553
Date Event Start Finish
07/26/2009 Indy 15 1
10/10/2009 California 3 1
11/22/2009 Homestead 1 5
02/21/2010 California 7 1