Friday 5: Auto Club Speedway presents challenge for NASCAR drivers, teams

It was one thing for Cup teams to race without having any practice, competing with a car they knew so well.

But this weekend at Auto Club Speedway could present as much of a challenge as teams have faced. They’ll run the Next Gen car at a track that has not hosted a Cup race in two years. Teams, still trying to learn the new car, get only 15 minutes of practice Saturday.

“It’s a big challenge, for sure,” said Alex Bowman, who won the last Cup race at the Fontana, California, track in 2020.

Bowman said that while simulation programs will help teams prepare, “until you really do (get on track), who really knows?”

That’s how it is likely to be the next several weeks, as teams run on different style of tracks with the Next Gen car for the first time.

“I feel like if you show up at the racetrack and you’re not close, you’re probably not going to fix it by the race,” former Cup champion Martin Truex Jr. told NBC Sports. “You’re not going to get it fixed during the race.”

“There’s going to be a lot of crazy storylines early in the year. There’s going to be a lot of surprises, and there’s going to be a lot of guys that have a good week, bad week, good week, bad week, hit and miss.

“I just feel like until we get some time under our belt and find kind of a baseline of what this thing wants at certain tracks, we’re all going to be searching. We’re all going to be taking gambles on what we’re taking to the racetrack, setup-wise.”

Auto Club Speedway marks the first time this season that teams will not have much track time before the race. 

At the Clash, teams had practice, heat races and some even had a consolation race before the main event. There were multiple practice sessions before the Daytona 500.

This weekend marks NASCAR’s