BROADCAST INFORMATION: Sunday’s race in Fontana, California, will air live on FOX at 3:30 p.m. ET. Can’t make it to a television? The race can be heard live on MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. Below is the broadcast schedule for the remainder of the weekend:
Friday, March 24
1:30 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series practice, FOX Sports 1
7 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series qualifying, FOX Sports 1
Saturday, March 25
11:30 a.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series practice, FOX Sports 1
2:30 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series final practice, FOX Sports 1
Sunday, March 26
3:30 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series race, FOX
THIS WEEKEND’S PAINT SCHEMES: Kasey Kahne will pilot the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS, Chase Elliott will drive the No. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet SS and Jimmie Johnson will take the wheel of the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will man the No. 88 Axalta Chevrolet SS.
HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS IN FONTANA: Hendrick Motorsports has 10 wins, five pole positions, 32 top-five finishes and 49 top-10s. Jimmie Johnson leads all drivers in wins, top-fives, top-10s and laps led at the track. Johnson is the defending race winner at Fontana after winning the March 2016 race at the California speedway.
KAHNE IN FONTANA: For the fifth race of the season, the NASCAR Cup Series stops at its first two-mile track on the circuit. Kahne earned the pole position in May 2004 in his first Cup start at the Fontana, California, track. The pole award marked his third of four total during his Cup rookie season. In his sixth start – September 2006 – at Fontana, Kahne captured the win and crossed the finish line with a 3.427-second lead over Dale Earnhardt Jr. Kahne has an average starting position of 11.8 and an average finish of 16.6 at the track.
ELLIOTT’S FONTANA STATS: Last season, Elliott collected a top-10 finish in his Cup Series debut at Auto Club Speedway. In the 21-year-old driver’s two NASCAR XFINITY Series starts at the two-mile speedway, he earned one top-five finish and two top-10’s, an average starting position of ninth and average finishing position of fifth.
JOHNSON IN FONTANA: According to NASCAR loop data since 2005, Johnson has the series-best driver rating in Fontana, California, with a score of 119.7. The driver rating is a formula that combines wins, top-15 finishes, average running position while on the lead lap, average speed under green, fastest lap, most laps led and lead-lap finishes. The maximum a driver can earn in each race is 150 points. The driver rating number is used pre-race as a prediction tool and post-race as a performance evaluator. Johnson also has a series-best finishing position of 6.1 in that time span.
EARNHARDT LOOKING FOR A WIN IN FONTANA: Earnhardt has two runner-up finishes at the Fontana speedway, but has yet to earn his first victory there. The 42-year-old veteran earned an 11th-place result in the 2016 event and hasn’t finished outside of the top 12 in his last six visits to the two-mile oval. According to NASCAR’s loop data statistics since 2005, Earnhardt leads all active drivers in green-flag passes at the California racetrack with 1,630. He ranks sixth in both average speed late in a run (169.908 mph) and fastest laps run (114).