Plenty of NASCAR news to talk about, courtesy of NASCAR.com:

• Ryan Newman never thought he’d call California “home.” Admittedly, it’s a bit of a stretch for the Indiana native. That is, until now. When Newman and his No. 39 Chevrolet team roll into Fontana, Calif., this weekend, they are home — the home track for Haas Automation, the co-owner of SHR and this weekend’s primary sponsor. Haas Automation has its headquarters in Oxnard, Calif., located 100 miles west of Auto Club Speedway.

             Through the years, the 2-mile speedway hasn’t been one of Newman’s best tracks. In 14 starts at Fontana, he has two top-five finishes and four top-10s. Last year, Newman finished 28th and 15th in the two races at the track.

             “Unfortunately, [Fontana] is not one of my favorite places to go,” Newman said. “I have not had the best record at California. The race track can be a lot of fun because it’s a very smooth track and super fast, but I just haven’t done all that well there throughout my career. It’s a track where, a lot of times, your team’s strategy determines the finish because, a lot of times, it becomes a fuel-mileage race.

             ”It will be even more interesting to see how, and if, that plays out with the new green-white-checker rule that NASCAR started last weekend at Daytona. We’ll just have to see how the race plays out.”

• Matt Kenseth is the defending race winner of the Auto Club 500 race at Fontana. It’s also the last time a Roush Fenway Racing driver visited Victory Lane. It’s also a place — Victory Lane at Fontana — that is very familiar to Kenseth; he has a series-best three wins at the track.

             ”Fontana is typically a very good track for me and the No. 17 team, so it’s nice going out there early on in the season,” said Kenseth, who has an average finish of 9.2 in 16 starts at the track. “We had really good success at the spring race last year with our win, so hopefully we’ll be able to capitalize on that similar success this weekend and get as many points as possible to start the year with.

             ”It was nice coming out of Daytona in the top-10, and we’re ready for California this weekend. We’ve done a lot of work in the offseason as an organization to prepare this kind of down-force track, so I’m excited.”

• Kevin Conway will begin his bid for the 2010 rookie of the year honor driving the No. 37 Ford this weekend at Fontana. For Conway, the race also will be his first Sprint Cup Series start and it comes with Front Row Motorsports.

              Conway has a fifth-place finish at the track in the West Series in 2004 and an 18th-place finish in the Nationwide Series last fall. The No. 37 team finished 29th in the Daytona 500 with driver Travis Kvapil.

              “This weekend is far from just another race,” Conway said. “This is the pinnacle of my career. I’ve been working for the past 24 years to be in a position to have this opportunity and it’s something that’s beyond a dream come true. It’s almost surreal. It’s like, ‘Wow, this is really happening.’ ”

• In eight Cup Series starts at Fontana, Clint Bowyer has earned one top-five finish and four top-10s and has never finished outside the top 20. And according to Loop Data, Bowyer is the second-best Closer at Fontana, picking up an average of three positions in the last 10 percent of the race.

              Still, he’s also had some bad finishes — often not by his own doing. “We’ve had bad luck,” Bowyer lamented. “I’ve been caught up in two wrecks coming off of Turn 4, there have been crazy things happen in front of me and we had a wheel get loose once on pit road. Again, we’ve just had bad luck [at Fontana]. You make a lot of your own luck, but nonetheless, Fontana hasn’t been good to us.”

              – Several members of the No. 33 over-the-wall pit crew will be at the Chevrolet Display area to sign autograph for fans at 9 a.m. ET Sunday.

              — Fans can see Bowyer at 5:30 p.m. Friday when he makes an appearance on “Trackside Live.” The show will take place on the SPEED Stage, located behind the frontstretch grandstands, and will air live on SPEED at 8:30 p.m. ET.

• Jeff Burton will drive a new chassis, No. 291, from the Richard Childress Racing stable. In 19 Cup Series starts at Fontana, Burton has five top-five finishes and six top-10s.

             He finished 32nd in the spring race and 30th in the fall race last season at Fontana and looks to improve on those results. “I would certainly like to forget those races,” Burton said. “Fontana was not a good race track for us last year. The Cat Racing team participated in the tire test there in the offseason and we were very competitive. The car drove great so I’m looking forward to turning the tide on our performances out there. In some ways I’d like to forget about last year’s results but those bad days make you stronger and it’s a challenge for us to do a lot better.”

             — Burton is scheduled to participate in the track’s Racing to Read program the morning of the Auto Club 500. He will read “Where the Wild Things Are” to kids in the Fanzone area, located on the outside of the race track. The storybook reading time will take place from 9-9:15 a.m. PT Sunday.

• Brad Keselowski’s No. 12 Dodge will use a new chassis, No. PRS-713, during Sunday’s race at Fontana. This weekend marks his first Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway, but he has made seven Nationwide Series starts at the 2-mile oval. Keselowski’s best finish — fifth — came in October 2009.

             “Unfortunately we lost some points at Daytona when we had our tire issues, but we can get those back,” said Keselowski, who finished 36th in the season opener. “It’s easier to make up ground at the beginning of the season than it is later in the year.

             ”Auto Club Speedway is a good track to start working our way back. It’s a ‘driver’s’ track, one with a lot of grooves that you can explore to find where your car is the most comfortable. We’ll be running anywhere between the apron and the wall and that’s why a lot of drivers like running there.”

• Preparing for his first event of the 2010 season, David Gilliland will step into the No. 38 Ford for his debut with Front Row Motorsports this weekend at Fontana. Gilliland competed with BAM Racing at Daytona and failed to make the field.

             Fontana will be the first time that Gilliland will work in race conditions with crew chief Randy Seals, who worked with Sprint Cup Series rookie Robert Richardson Jr. during the Daytona 500. He finished 31st.

             “It’s agonizing to miss any race, and having missed the Daytona 500 was just plain heartbreaking,” Gilliland said. “But, California is a brand new start for me, and I’m looking forward to what’s going to be a good challenge for me.

             “We don’t have grand illusions of winning a championship this season, but we have goals of being a consistent team running inside the top-25 each week. That’s attainable, and it’s a lot easier when you are guaranteed in the race. You don’t have to worry about a qualifying setup and then playing catch-up the rest of the weekend. We can just go to the track and know we’re going to race. That’s a big deal. It feels like a bulldozer lifted off my shoulders.”

• From A.J. Allmendinger to Brian Vickers, the 46-driver entry list for the Auto Club 500 at Fontana has posted.

             First practice is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET Friday (SPEED) with Happy Hour slated for 3:45 p.m. ET Saturday (SPEED).

             The race broadcast begins at 3 p.m. ET Sunday (FOX).

             Below is the 2010 Auto Club 500 entry list: