Mar 23, 2013 6 min read

FONTANA, Calif. – A few hours after putting his footprints and signature in drying concrete on Fontana’s walk of fame, Tony Stewart hopped on his jet with Kyle Larson and flew 400 miles north to Stockton, Calif., where Larson beat him in a dirt-track race.

Just a typical Friday for Stewart – and just another indication he’s not worried about Stewart-Haas Racing’s slow start heading into today’s fifth race of the NASCAR season.

Wrecks, bad tires and simply unfortunate breaks have combined to keep Stewart way down in 24th place in the overall points standings next to the three-time Sprint Cup series champion’s similarly placed teammates, Ryan Newman (23rd) and rookie Danica Patrick (28th). Stewart isn’t exactly worried about it just yet, but it’s clear Smoke would love to figure out the new Gen-6 car in time to celebrate a third win in four years at Fontana heading into NASCAR’s off week.

“Everybody wants an answer that nobody has an answer to right now,” said Stewart, who starts eighth Sunday. “Every track that we’re going to is a learning deal right now. You’re going to go through a lot of races before we all figure out what the car likes and dislikes.”

Stewart-Haas could use a bit of the same good fortune that made Stewart the defending champion on this sunbaked, 2-mile course, where he won a rain-shortened race last year. There’s no chance of rain in sunny Southern California this weekend, and Stewart sounds confident his team’s forecast will improve soon.

“It’s just early in the year,” said Stewart, who lost tire pressure and spun early last week at Bristol. “If all of us had finished all the races and we’re back there because we’ve been running bad, that would be one thing. We’ve all had races that we’ve crashed out of. Four races into a season, that’s 25 percent of your points total. Just having one of those (crashes) is enough to mess up the point standings right now.”

Stewart is among the busiest drivers, helping his goal to race 100 times this year with his trip to Stockton’s new dirt track and its 10,000-plus fans. But the hottest driver is Kasey Kahne, who won at Bristol last week after finishing second in Las Vegas two weeks ago.

After arriving at this track in 2012 in the midst of a nasty slump during his debut season with Hendrick Motorsports, Kahne was comfortable enough this year to spend one night getting a tattoo of his grandfathers’ initials on his forearm.

Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson is a five-time winner at NASCAR’s closest track to his native El Cajon, Calif., and he’s a fan favorite in San Bernardino County. Denny Hamlin won the pole Friday, and Brad Keselowski will chase his fifth straight top-five finish to start his series title defense from the back after engine trouble.

Keselowski isn’t writing off his chances to contend after such a strong start to the season, albeit with no victories yet.

“It’s pretty early with this Gen-6 car, and so I don’t think anyone really knows who the favorite is to beat,” said Keselowski, who could tie Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s 1995 record of five straight top-fives to start a title defense. “I know we might have the points lead, but I think it’s too early to label any one team ahead or behind.”

Power starts first in IndyCar opener: The same driver will lead the field to the green flag through the streets of the St. Petersburg for the fourth consecutive year.

Only Will Power will have some new faces right behind him in today in the season-opening IndyCar race.

Power earned his fourth consecutive pole at St. Pete by posting a best lap of 1:01.2070 on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street circuit.

“Good start to the year,” said the Australian, who won his 30th pole to move ahead of Dario Franchitti for seventh on the career list.

Right behind Power was Takuma Sato, making his first start for A.J. Foyt Racing. Sato had never qualified higher than 11th at St. Pete before claiming a spot on the front row for the first time since Edmonton in 2011.

Qualifying a career-best third was Simona de Silvestro. She’s been among the fastest drivers all weekend in her debut for new team KV Racing Technology and can sense a huge opportunity ahead of her.

De Silvestro finished a career-best fourth at St. Pete in 2011.

“It’s really cool to finally get the results we wanted,” she said.

James Hinchcliffe qualified fourth for Andretti Autosport and was followed by Helio Castroneves, who joined his Penske Racing teammate Power in the Fast Six.

Then it was rookie Tristan Vautier, the 2012 Indy Lights champion, who marked his IndyCar debut weekend by earning a spot in the Fast Six in his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports entry.

Five teams were represented in the Fast Six, with only Penske putting teammates in the final group.

Failing to advance was defending IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Franchitti and Scott Dixon.

The absence of both Ganassi cars from the Fast Six was predicted as early as Friday as the Honda teams have struggled. No Honda drivers made it out of the first round of qualifying, and Sato and Vautier were the only two Hondas in the final round.

A year after Honda won just four of the 15 races – but one of those victories was the Indianapolis 500 with Franchitti – flagship team owner Ganassi admitted Saturday he’s “starting to eyeball the red flags to grab them.”

“I think Honda has some work to do, but I think they know that,” Ganassi said. “They were mission accomplished last year, at the right time, when it counted most. To have to rely on that again is a tall order … I don’t know if they want to win bad enough. They talk about everything at Honda but winning.”

Busch keeps Gibbs’ streak alive: Kyle Busch earned Joe Gibbs Racing’s ninth consecutive Nationwide Series victory at Fontana, comfortably beating Sam Hornish Jr. for his third win in five races this season.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Toyotas haven’t lost a Nationwide race on their unofficial home track since 2007. Busch pushed ahead late in a back-and-forth duel with Nationwide points leader Hornish’s Ford to win his second straight Nationwide race.

What’s more, Parker Kligerman drove his Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota to a fourth-place finish. Regan Smith was third, and Austin Dillon came in fifth ahead of Kyle Larson.