Teams approach Fontana with visions of Michigan

Fontana's Auto Club Speedway of Southern California is a combination of layouts, an unlikely blend of Michigan International Speedway with some aspects of Pocono Raceway thrown in.

There's not a lot of similarities between Michigan and Pocono, but that's what it works out to be. Fontana is flatter than Michigan, but the layout is much the same. Pocono is pretty flat, but the layout resembles a triangle, not the D-shape of Fontana and Michigan.

While Michigan and Fontana are similar, they're not carbon copies, said Jimmy Elledge, crew chief for A.J. Allmendinger at Red Bull Racing Team.

"[Fontana] has a lot of bumps, and that sort of upsets things with the bump-stops," he said. "It's like everywhere ... you have to get the car to turn well without being loose."

One thing all three tracks have in common, at least with the new car for this year, is lack of grip.

"At Fontana you have a tendency of being loose in and tight in the middle and you're always searching to have enough grip off of the corners," said David Hyder, crew chief for Marcos Ambrose and the No. 21 Ford. "As long as we make the car consistent getting into the middle of the corner and free it up so it won't be loose off, we'll be fine."

One cure for handling -- or at least another option -- is horsepower, Hyder said, and that's something he feels like his car will have.

"It's a horsepower track so definitely our motor program will show up there," Hyder said. "I like going there just for the fact of that, but there's a lot of room and you can race there. When it comes race time there's not going to be a lot of grip so there will be racecars sliding all around. It's going to make for a good race.

"We learned a lot in Michigan and going into [Fontana], there is definitely a little bit of a difference in racetracks, but for the most part the setup is close to the same. I think we made a lot of headway the second day at Michigan for what we needed at an oval track with Marcos." (Continued)