Fontana is the first real test for drivers

NASCAR is back in Fontana, which means Jimmie Johnson will toss and turn at night.

“When I go to California, I know the night before I’m not going to sleep well,” the reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion said of this weekend’s race at Auto Club Speedway. “I haven’t for the last eight years.”

That’s because Johnson and his rival drivers view Sunday’s Auto Club 500, the second race after last weekend’s season-opening Daytona 500, as the first true yardstick of how their cars stack up against each other.

At Daytona, the cars draft in close-knit packs because their engines’ power is capped for safety reasons. Not so at the two-mile Fontana oval, where the cars are more spread out and teams see better evidence of how they compare.

“We have no idea where [everyone’s] setups are and where the technology has gone” until Sunday’s race, said Johnson, who has won an unprecedented four consecutive Cup titles for Hendrick Motorsports. “So I’m just curious, is the car going to be any good?” he said.

Johnson and other Cup drivers have one practice and then qualify Friday to set the 43-car field for Sunday’s race.

Danica Patrick and other drivers in NASCAR’s second-level Nationwide Series also will practice ahead of Saturday’s Stater Bros. 300 Nationwide race.

Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray and some other drivers arrived in Fontana hoping to carry their momentum from last weekend, while others are looking to rebound.

McMurray reunited this season with the team of Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, whose other driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, led 78 laps and finished third in the fall Cup race at Fontana last October.

“I expect to get to Fontana, be able to unload [the car] with the setup that Juan ran last year and be really close,” said McMurray, who drives the No. 1 Chevrolet.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., coming off a miserable 2009 season, also wants to follow his second-place finish last weekend with a stout showing in California. “I haven’t typically been good at California, but it’s easier to go there after we ran good at Daytona,” said Earnhardt, who also drives for Hendrick.

Johnson, in turn, is among the drivers eager to offset their poor showing in Daytona with a strong race here, a comeback that’s nearly becoming a ritual for Johnson.

Prior to this year, the El Cajon native had finished outside the top 25 in three consecutive Daytona 500s, then each time recovered the next week with a top-10 finish at Auto Club Speedway. Johnson also has won the second race here for the last three years.

Following the script yet again, Johnson finished 35th at Daytona after his No. 48 Chevy had mechanical problems, but he’s optimistic about Fontana. “We were in really good position when our car broke,” he said. “So, that one’s behind us.”

Matt Kenseth is the defending winner of the Auto Club 500 -- he also had won the Daytona 500 last year -- but the Roush Fenway Racing driver hasn’t won a race since then and he’s hungry.

“I’ve always liked going to Fontana,” said Kenseth, who finished eighth at Daytona last weekend. “For me it’s a really fun track. It’s really fast and you’ve got to get through the corners really fast.”

His teammate Carl Edwards, who won the Auto Club 500 two years ago, agreed. The track “just fits my style, it’s very fast and wide,” he said. “I’ve won there, I love racing there.”

But Edwards cautioned that “California is going to be the race where we find out what we have” compared with other teams.

And that keeps Johnson awake.

“You just don’t know,” Johnson said. “Until you get out there and start solving problems in your head and getting into the rhythm of it, it’s a big question mark. And I hate question marks.”

james.peltz@latimes.com