Hendrick in top form for Fontana

The Chevy Bow-ties should be on pace full throttle for this Sunday’s Cup race in Fontana, Calif., by the looks of how practice has gone this weekend. We always expect the Hendrick cars to be terrific at just about every track, but this week they have some company.

Out of the gate already is Jamie McMurray with his win at Daytona. McMurray has been run ragged all week, making appearances on just about every national TV and radio show. On Friday, all he did was sit on the pole for Sunday’s race, continuing his magical week.

Sitting next to McMurray on the front row is his teammate, Juan Pablo Montoya. Montoya looks to have perhaps his best chance at winning a race -- other than a road course event -- this week. Both McMurray and Montoya have great cars this week, but we're leaning toward Montoya based on how good his car was in combined average practice times.

California races usually have long green flag runs, making the average speeds more relevant than most tracks when attempting to project the winner.

The Bow-ties also have welcomed the Childress organization back to the party. After a terrible first 26 races last season, Richard Childress did some tinkering and got many of his cars to run respectably. Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick have carried that momentum into this season and it’s apparent that the needed horsepower for this track is there after watching the two in practice.

Harvick brought his chassis that finished third at Homestead for the season closer last year and was just as good in practice times as he was then. Bowyer may even look a little better than Harvick. He had the second-fastest Happy Hour speeds, along with the third-fastest 10-lap average times. Jeff Burton also found his way into the top-10 times with the sixth-fastest times, giving all three Childress cars the look of a possible winner for Sunday.

The two cars they’ll have to tangle with in order to win belong to Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin who are bringing some pretty fast cars that have proven fast in races from last season, let alone bringing up past credentials on the track.

Johnson is the track's all-time leader in wins at California with four and is the top rated driver with an average finish of 5.8 in all his Fontana races. He won his first career race on the track and he’s a California kid from nearby El Cajon. He was fast in just about every measure possible over the first three sessions, getting better with each one, including the all important long runs where he was the best.

Johnson brings heavy artillery this week that will be tough to beat which is why he is the 9-to-2 favorite to win. He’ll be using the same chassis that won at Indianapolis and the fall California race last season. The only knock on Johnson may be that he hasn’t won the early Cal race since his rookie year and he has been a slow starter the past two seasons. However, he never had a car that looked this tight in any of those early season's races when he struggled.

Mark Martin captured a win at California over a decade ago in what was the second ever race on the track. He was equally as good as Johnson in all facets of practice and was fastest overall in two of the three sessions. Martin has brought his chassis that won on California’s sister track of Michigan last season in June.

Look for both Johnson and Martin to set the early tempo and then see where it goes from there, with a key emphasis based on the weather. Saturday’s conditions at the speedway were extremely cool in the mid-50s. Rain is expected Saturday night, which will wash away all the rubber laid down from Saturday’s practice and the Nationwide race.

All teams have to play on the same track, but some of the advantages that these top teams have right now could be diminished in another setting, such as on a warmer race day.

The most surprising thing about all the sessions was the lack of an impressive Ford from Fenway-Roush, which has won this race the last five seasons and claims seven wins in 19 races on the track. Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards had good individual lap times, but weren’t very good on the long runs.

The best non-Chevy on the track looks to be teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch from Joe Gibbs Racing who both had decent practices and were good on long run average times.

California Doesn't flinch

The most enteratining thing I've found this week while staying in Hollywood is that Los Angeles really doesn't care about the race. Many think of Fontana in the same way we in Las Vegas may look forward to a drive to Barstow to hang out for a few hours. I think it's safe to say that Los Angeles' metropolis cares the least about stock car racing of any stops on the NASCAR tour.

This is the only time they visit a place on their schedule where they barely measure a blip on the weekend entertainment screen for the area. It's hard to figure how the Fontana track has two races a season that don't sell out with only 80,000 seats in an area that doesn't care, while Las Vegas only has one race.

Micah Roberts, a former race and sports director, has been setting NASCAR lines in Las Vegas since 1995. He currently writes for various outlets covering all sports. He can be reached at MM.Roberts7@Gmail.com.