As Nascar enters its fifth week, it goes to the last race of the three-week west coast swing: the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway. Ironic title isn’t it. This two-mile track has been the sight of several spectacular races and finishes over the past several years, and it won’t be surprising if this race has another of those finishes.

The past two races here have been won by the same team and the same driver: Kyle Busch. But he has been sidelined by a crash in February, and he has yet to return to the track. His teammate Denny Hamlin has been fast here over the past couple years, so a win from him wouldn’t be surprising.

An interesting fact about Auto Club Speedway is that in puts great strain on the tires. Last year the drivers never went more than about twenty-five laps without somebody blowing a tire. That made the finish very interesting. Jimmie Johnson blew a tire in the final ten laps while leading the race. The blow outs set up one of the best finishes in all of 2015.

One driver who fell victim to the tire failures last year was Kevin Harvick, who had the dominate car for that race. He lost two tires over the course of the race, and finished very low in the field. On the other hand, his teammate Tony Stewart blew a tire early in the race and lost a lap, only to regain it. After that Stewart used a gamble to restart toward the front for the last restart. Tony and teammate Kurt Busch battled for the win, and even though Kyle Busch eventually passed them, the fact that Tony was in prime position after the trouble he had early on was a sign that anything can happen with some strategy.

In fact, the leader on the last restart was Travis Kvapil, a driver on a little team with almost no funding. How did he get up there? A gamble. There were several low profile drivers toward the front, so this is an unpredictable race.

Teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson where leaders late in the race, so it could be that Hendrick Motorsports has the best cars for the Auto Club race. After all even though there were no Hendrick drivers in the top five, there were three cars made by Hendrick that finished in the top five.

There was a surprising person in second place: Kyle Larson, the rookie. He has proved again and again that he belongs at the front of the pack, but he has yet to win. Could his first win come this weekend? It is very possible. His teammate Jamie McMurray is also a strong candidate, with strong runs in the past several races of the year.

The question of who will win this weekend is a tough one, since the dominate driver here is in a wheelchair. However, three drivers stand out. Kevin Harvick, Kyle Larson, and Tony Stewart. Kevin has been plain dominate in the past several weeks, with seven straight top two finishes. Larson has shown undeniable talent at several tracks, this one included. And Tony, despite a lot of trouble in the past year, has shown considerable strength at Auto Club, and has multiple wins here, all of them in the past few years. In my opinion, the winner will most likely come from these three drivers.