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and there is a lot of dicing going on."

NASCAR Winston Cup makes one of its two annual appearances on the West Coast this weekend when it visits California Speedway, and it is a trip that Ricky Rudd, driver of the #21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus Team enjoys. Rudd likes the track because the design offers such competitive racing. He has three top-five and four top-10 finishes on the two-mile D-shaped oval in six years.

"California is a track I've always enjoyed running. You hear a lot of people compare it to Michigan. To me, it is not a good comparison. You have to handle a little bit better at California than you do at Michigan. Turns three and four are similar to Michigan. Turns one and two are very different than Michigan.

"It is a track that takes a lot of horsepower, but it also takes a good handling race car. We've been fortunate that we've run pretty well there every year.

"There is no big secret to it. You drive off into turns one and two. You work to get your car driving well enough to drive right on the bottom of the race track. You have a real wide arc entry into the corner. As you enter turn one, roll out of the throttle and use very, very light brake pressure. Just enough to know that you have brakes there. You are out of the throttle just a couple of seconds.

"Similar to all of your big tracks that have the big radius corners, you want to keep your momentum going, keep that speed going so that when you roll into the backstretch straight away you are up to speed. You drive it right in against the bottom of the white line and try to hold it there. As you are making the exit you want to unwind the steering wheel and let the car build acceleration and RPM as quickly as possible. That means you use up pretty much every inch of the race track and drive it out against the fence on the backstretch. It is a long, flat back straightaway.

"There is a real nice entry into turn three. The way the track was designed it has a real nice gradual bank angle as you enter the corner which makes for pretty good racing. You can enter that corner low or high, two wide and it is not a big issue.

"Once you arrive in the middle of that corner, the fast way in qualifying trim and on fresh tires is on the bottom getting the car to stick, get a bite and keep it rolling off the corner and into the front straightaway. You tend to fight a push up off that corner. The front end doesn't want to stick as well as you need it to a lot of times. And if you get too greedy and try to run too fast through that corner and keep too much momentum going it won't show up until you get to the late exit right as you're coming into the straightaway. And if you get a little overly aggressive with it, it will kill your lap time. That is because right at the last minute when you roll into that straightaway, where you need to be accelerating you will have to lift the throttle a little to keep the front end from smacking the fence. So the trick is to keep the momentum going without having to lift the throttle on a late exit and use that momentum down that long front straightaway.

"It is a big long front straightaway - a lot of fun. You will run three, four, five wide there all day and there is a lot of dicing going on. That is a track you will see guys go down the front straightaway and they'll start off wide against the fence. And they will come all the way down to the inside of the apron and then swoop back up again as you enter turn one - right up against the fence and then that wide arc as you enter turn one.