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Carl Edwards, who had a disappointing ending to last season, is looking to repeat his fast start of 2008, writes Johnny Benson of NBCSports.com.

Keys to success at Fontana
The Auto Club Speedway is 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 Sprint 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.

A driver’s chassis has to be performing extremely well for him to run the bottom groove for the entire 500 miles, but I feel 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 a changing best groove is critical to a solid run.

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 it 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.

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. But getting on and off pit road can be difficult. At Daytona last week, there were a lot of mistakes by drivers in missing their pit stalls, and sliding through. Entering and exiting pit road at Fontana will be even more crucial than it was at Daytona because if a driver loses ground at Fontana, it’s harder to get that ground back than it is at Daytona.

Also, drivers just have to watch not to speed entering and leaving 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.