Ticking off the multitude of storylines associated with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Allen Bestwick might have lobbied for a larger broadcast window on ABC.
Biffle has 20 Sprint Cup Series starts at Fontana, earning one win, four top-five and seven top-10 finishes, while also leading 297 laps total. He has an average starting position of 13.9 and finishing position of 17.8 at the track.
Trevor Bayne will make his second career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) start at Auto Club Speedway this weekend. In one previous start at the two-mile oval, Bayne started 27th and finished in the 30th position.
This is the same chassis that Roush Fenway Racing teammate Ryan Reed raced last season at Auto Club Speedway (finishing 17th), Charlotte Motor Speedway (finishing 14th and 15th), Kentucky Speedway (finishing 17th) and Atlanta Motor Speedway (finishing 18th).
Chris Buescher makes his second NASCAR XFINITY Series start at Auto Club Speedway on Saturday. In his previous start, coming last season, Buescher started 19th and finished 14th.
Auto Club Speedway is the site of Dakoda Armstrong's second-career NASCAR XFINITY Series start, but that's not the only reason he's fond of the track. Armstrong likes Auto Club because of the multiple-groove racing it provides. Tire wear will come into play as well at the Two-mile track, but the No. 43 WinField team will look to reduce the correlating speed drop-off throughout the weekend.
Reed has competed at Auto Club Speedway (ACS) just once in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. In 2014, he finished in the 17th position after starting 15th and fighting loose conditions much of the day.
Aric Almirola and the No. 43 Smithfield Ford team have shown strength at the intermediate tracks this year. They scored an 11th-place finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway and looked poised to tally another Top-15 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway before contact on the track relegated them to a 26th-place finish.
Richard Childress Racing's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series history at Auto Club Speedway ... In 76 overall NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts at Auto Club Speedway, RCR Chevrolet teams have earned one win (Kevin Harvick - 2011), one pole award (Mike Skinner - April 2000), 10 top-five and 26 top-10 finishes. RCR has a 20.6 average starting position, a 16.5 average finishing position and has completed 17,565 of the 17,855 laps (98.4 percent) contested at the moderately-banked, D-shaped race track.
The NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) heads to Kansas Speedway this weekend for the Hollywood Casino 400 on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET for the fourth race in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase on the USA Network.
The ARCA Menards Series West will take on the one-third mile Madera Speedway in the tenth race of its 2026 season in Saturday’s Madera 150 Presented by West Coast Stock Car Motorsports Hall of Fame.