iNSIDE SCOOP: California Dreamin'

FONTANA, Calif. -- If you're a Toyota driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, you want to win at Auto Club Speedway in California. 

It's like a Ford or Chevrolet driver wanting to win at Michigan; it's where your manufacturer is located.

Judging by the way things have gone for the Toyota folks this weekend, there's a better than even chance of that happening.

Matt Kenseth won the pole for Sunday's Auto Club 400, Clint Bowyer ran fifth. They wee the only two Toyotas in the top 12, however, and that might be a bit disconcerting, but ACS is so wide and fast it is almost like Daytona in that regard.

Four Fords and six Chevrolets made the top 12.

This new qualifying format is wild, but there's not a lot of difference out here. In the final group of 12, each of the 12 cars completed just one lap.

OF course, they only have five minutes, so that is not unexpected.

It was in the second round, the round of 24, that it was a surprise.

Six drivers in the second group ran three laps each, and only two of them--AJ Allmendinger and Brian Vickers--went faster on the third lap.

Greg Biffle didn't even run a lap in the second session.

It's sort of single-car qualifying in a group, if that makes any sense.

OF course, we're on a 2-mile oval, and that makes a difference. It's one thing to do multiple laps at Martinsville, but ACS? 

THe Fords were so strong at Bristol, especially in the late going, and Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards were each in the top 12. Keselowski wound up on the front row for the fourth straight week.

Joey Logano was seventh, ending a string of front-row starts for him.

One guy who needed a big, fast track to work some kinks out on was Martin Truex Jr., who despite starting outside row one in Daytona, has not been all that quick so far with the Furniture Row Chevrolet.

He was 12th in the second session and 12th in the third, so he'll start 12th Sunday. If anybody needs a good finish, it's the Clam Prince of New Jersey.

Kyle Larson wound up in the top 12 and will start 11th. The kid is legit. I remember being somewhat skeptical of him moving up to the Cup series so early, but that went away after Bristol. The kid is a brawler. 

One guy who has had struggles with speed so far this year is Kyle Busch, and he'll start 14th this weekend. He won the race when Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano got to playing biggest-kid-on-the-playground, but it stands to reason that Busch would have at least split them before it was over. He was coming like a Union Pacific locomotive.

Tony Stewart had a good day, too, practicing in the top 10 and keeping it for qualifying. He'll start 10th, and after finishing fourth at Bristol, he's starting to pick up steam. No, he's not 100 percent. He won't be until late summer. But he's running like it.

We'll see what happens today, but if I were a betting man, I'd put my blunt down on the 20, the 2 and the 48.