{"id":15236,"date":"2018-03-05T17:39:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T23:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=15236"},"modified":"2018-03-11T10:44:40","modified_gmt":"2018-03-11T15:44:40","slug":"nascars-west-coast-natives-tame-the-nascargoeswest-tracks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/05\/nascars-west-coast-natives-tame-the-nascargoeswest-tracks\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR\u2019s West Coast Natives Tame The #NASCARGoesWest Tracks \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, <\/b>NASCAR Wire Service<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kevin Harvick\u2019s dominating victory in Sunday\u2019s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was head-turning in its standard of excellence. For NASCAR West Coasters like the Californian Harvick, winning on NASCAR\u2019s Western Swing has become a particular source of pride.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Jimmy John’s Ford, poses with the winners sticker after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 4, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Matt Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

And statistics show, winning happens a lot for the West Coasters on the sport\u2019s Western Swing.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s top-three finishers at Vegas, for example, all hail from the region. In addition to Harvick, from Bakersfield, Calif., runner-up Kyle Busch is a Las Vegas native and third-place finisher Kyle Larson is from Elk Grove, Calif.<\/p>\n

Five Monster Energy NASCAR Cup drivers from the West \u2013 Harvick, Busch, Larson, Jimmie Johnson and Kurt Busch account for 33 wins at the three #NASCARGoesWest tracks \u2013 Las Vegas, ISM Raceway in Phoenix, and Auto Club Speedway in California.<\/p>\n

Add another six wins \u2013 covering all three venues \u2013 if you count in California native, retired Cup champion Jeff Gordon\u2019s work there.<\/p>\n

A.J. Allmendinger, of Los Gatos, Calif., hasn\u2019t won yet on the Western Swing, but did earn the pole position at ISM Raceway in 2010 and has two top-10 starts in his last four Auto Club Speedway races. And Phoenix native, Alex Bowman won the pole position at his hometown track in 2016 driving for the injured Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/p>\n

With a pair of trophies in three races already this season, Harvick is riding a huge swell of momentum into this week\u2019s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM) at ISM Raceway. It is a venue where he has already produced a career-highlight mark on his resume.<\/p>\n

He has a series-best eight wins at ISM Raceway and 19-top-10s in 30 starts. He won five of six races between 2013-2016, finishing runner-up in the only race during that stretch that he didn\u2019t win. He hasn\u2019t finished worse than sixth in the last nine ISM Raceway races.<\/p>\n

For Harvick, spending time out West is something he particularly looks forward to and this year he\u2019s doing something he\u2019s never done before \u2013 competing in a NASCAR K&N West Series race at Kern County Raceway in his native Bakersfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be brutally honest with you I am looking forward to going to race the K&N car more than any of them next Thursday – not because I don\u2019t enjoy what I do here, but because I have never raced at Kern County Raceway in my hometown,” Harvick said last weekend in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like coming to all three of these races because I get to see so many fans and friends. The race of the three weeks that we are out here, the four that I am going to race, the one I am looking forward to the most is the K&N race because it isn\u2019t something I get to do all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had to pick one out of the three [Cup races he is most fond of] I would pick California just because I love the surface and how much the cars wear out the tires and slide around and the multiple grooves and all the things that come with Auto Club Speedway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Competing in a sport once traditionally associated with the Southeast, for these West Coast natives, racing in places such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and California has been a chance to shine in front of the fans and supporters who watched them establish themselves and ascend at the local tracks throughout the region.<\/p>\n

That those same drivers seem to naturally fare so well \u201cat home\u201d is appreciated by team, by fan and by driver.<\/p>\n

And a trophy this weekend would surely be welcomed by Californian Jimmie Johnson, the sport\u2019s seven-time champion who hasn\u2019t won a race since last Spring. His mark of 25 races since a victory is the longest in his career, albeit a small time frame by any competitive standard. And he\u2019s returning to the land of victory donuts and champagne toasts.<\/p>\n

Johnson is second only to Harvick in trophy-hauls and optimism at ISM Raceway with four wins, three pole positions and 20 top-10 finishes in 29 starts at the track. He captured those four victories during a five-race span during the 2007-09 seasons. He has four top-11 showings \u2013 and a pole \u2013 in the last six races at Phoenix.<\/p>\n

And if Arizona doesn\u2019t prove to be the place that restores his winning ways, Johnson is the gold standard in his native California, the track where he hoisted his first of 83 trophies. He boasts a series best six wins at the 2-mile Auto Club Speedway. He has scored a pair of pole positions and accumulated 16 top-10 finishes in 23 starts at the track \u2013 his last win coming in 2016.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the Elk Grove, Calif. native Larson has proven himself top-shelf at Auto Club Speedway, winning from the pole position there last year. He was runner-up at the track in his Cup race debut there four years ago.<\/p>\n

With the exception of Larson (who was runner-up in the 2017 spring ISM Raceway race), Harvick, Johnson and both Busch brothers have victories at the always tough one-miler. Kyle Busch has finished in the top-five in his last five Phoenix races including runner-up in 2016. His older brother Kurt won at ISM Raceway in 2005 and has top-10 finishes in five of the last seven races here.<\/p>\n

At Auto Club Speedway, Kyle Busch has three victories, including back-to-back wins in 2013-14. His older brother Kurt won at California in 2003 and has four top-10s in the last six races there.<\/p>\n

The opportunity to compete in front of a \u201chometown\u201d crowd is something Kyle Busch says he appreciates for competitive and sentimental reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody hates the time change,” he said. \u201cI use that to my advantage since I think I\u2019m usually on West Coast time, anyway. I still haven\u2019t gotten East Coast time down yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun for me. It\u2019s a cool atmosphere and the weather is great without the humidity. If it\u2019s hot out, it\u2019s nice and warm. And if it\u2019s cold, it\u2019s a crisp cold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still home and I love being out West.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kevin Harvick\u2019s dominating victory in Sunday\u2019s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was head-turning in its standard of excellence. For NASCAR West Coasters like the Californian Harvick, winning on NASCAR\u2019s Western Swing has become a particular source of pride. And statistics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-15236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/LVMS_MENCS_sticker_030418-e1520216422888.jpg?fit=640%2C477&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-3XK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15238,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15236\/revisions\/15238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}