My darkhorse is Scott Riggs. The fourth-year Cup driver runs well on intermediate tracks, but he hasn't yet been able to put it together in the second half of his races. That's why he is still looking for his first win in NASCAR's top series.

In his six Cup races at California, Riggs has started in the top 10 four times with his best result being a seventh-place finish on Sept. 5, 2004. He started 14th and came home 19th in this race last year.

Keys to success at California
It's a flat track that's super smooth, wide and multi-grooved. These characteristics make passing a lot easier at this venue than at other tracks on the Nextel Cup circuit.

As the track, which hosted its first Cup race in 1997, has seasoned, it has become more and more of a multi-groove layout. That creates opportunities for drivers to try different grooves in their attempts to pass other cars.

You have to be extremely good to run the bottom for the entire 500 miles, but I think that as the race goes on the groove that's best to run will move towards the top of the track.

The optimum groove changes. Whatever works for 200 miles might not work for the next 200 miles. Adapting to the changing groove is critical.

Aero push is important as drivers want the front end of their car to be as close to the track as possible, thus making the car fast. If a driver's car is handling well, this is a track where it's certainly fun to watch him race.

Front grip will be key to overcoming the aero push, and drivers who have solid front grip working on their cars can move around more and use more of the track.

Also, the pit area is wide open with plenty of room for each of the pit stalls, and it has two acceleration lanes from which to exit. So there is really nothing about pitting at California Speedway that should cause time to be lost on a pit stop.

Drivers just have to watch not to speed entering pit road. Their total focus has to be on how fast they are going entering the pits so they don't get hit with a penalty by NASCAR.

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