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The newly-renamed Auto Club Speedway of Southern California (man, that's a gawdy mouthful) had plenty of laps turned on its banks Friday.

The only problem, though, was that those laps didn't have a single racing vehicle involved.

Rain, seeping water, and more rain prevented all three of NASCAR's series -- Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Craftsman Truck -- from practicing or qualifying Friday, leaving all of the driving duties up to the jet dryers who tried all afternoon to get the surface prepared.

Instead, Saturday will be quite a busy day at ACS (yep, still weird) as both the Nationwide and Craftsman Truck Series will race, Nationwide will get a practice session, and the Sprint Cup teams will get practice sessions.

As FanHouse stated yesterday, the rain definitely played havoc with teams outside of the Top-35 from last year's owner points who made the trip trying to make Sunday's Sprint Cup Auto Club 500.

While Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon will share the front row, five drivers will head home including A.J. Allmendinger, Ken Schrader, Patrick Carpentier, Burney Lamar and Mike Skinner.

The forecast for Satuday in Fontana looks a little bit better during the day with skies expected to be partly sunny, but there's a 60% chance of rain in the evening when both races are expected to be run. Sunday doesn't look very promising for racing with a 90% chance of rain during the day and 20% that evening. Fortunately, California Auto Club does have lights, and teams would much rather stay deep into the night than have to run a race on Monday.

First rainout of the year in its second race? Let's hope not.

Last season, a number of drivers were burned by the combination of the Top-35 rule and rain on the day of qualifying for several NASCAR Sprint Cup events.

Case in point? Boris Said.

The road course ace has tried to gather together sponsorship and a quality team together to compete in a handful of races every year, and his current situation has No Fear Energy Drink as the sponsor with support from Roush Fenway Racing.

That combination had Boris on the pole for last year's Pepsi 400 at Daytona in July -- until a rain storm canceled qualifying midway through the session, sending Boris home instead of into a race on the following night.

Friday, rain is possible and the NASCAR Scene has developed a list of go-homers in the event of rain. From the Scene:

The top 35 in owners points from 2007 are locked into the field. If qualifying is canceled, the first 35 positions are allocated by owners points from last year for the first five races of the season.

Barring any teams having missed the entry list deadline, the remaining eight spots would be allocated like this:

If there's a prettier scene than that in NASCAR, I've yet to see it.

I didn't say the racing was amazing in California -- frankly, it's not -- but it's still a gorgeous background. Almost on par with Labor Day in the Darlington, S.C.-area.

Almost.

Anyways, Jeff Gordon took top honors in the afternoon session Thursday with his lap of 180.505mph on his 75th lap of the session. Yes, seventy-fifth.

The California-native, though, didn't pace the overall speed chart from the morning and afternoon sessions as that honor belonged to Denny Hamlin's Toyota with a lap of 182.523.

Ryan Newman, Kyle Busch, Mark Martin, and Gordon's lap from the morning session rounded out the top-5 in the cumlative morning and afternoon results.

Teams were given the option over the two-day California Speedway test to choose from four of the five sessions offered. Three were offered Thursday (including one under the lights) and two on Friday, to give teams either a chance to test at night for when they return for the track's second date in September or to head home Friday afternoon.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sat out the first session on Thursday meaning he'll be around until the track closes Friday afternoon.

As of this post, times haven't been posted for the night session. Until then, go back to looking at that gorgeous picture.

The first western swing of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 2008 campaign hits full stride Monday morning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The second scheduled stop of the Preseason Thunder testing sessions will offer drivers their first opportunity to turn laps at Vegas in the new model of NASCAR race cars. Sprint Cup Series director John Darby thinks that's nothing but a good thing.

"The good part of it is we're not all worried about it," said Darby, referring to the flurry of criticism that followed last years new car testing.

"All that's behind us."

The test -- it runs Monday and Tuesday at LVMS -- will also give the drivers a better idea as to what the new car feels like without a restrictor plate on the motor and in the exact specifications that the teams will come back with in March for the third race of the year.

A travel day is scheduled for Wednesday as teams make the trek towards California Speedway in Fontana, site of the first "normal" race following the Daytona 500 in February. Once they've arrived, the garages will be open for any work teams need to get done before testing on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday's session runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. while Friday's goes from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. -- local times of course.

Darby said that because of the new car's design requirements, many teams will bring two cars total out west instead of swapping in the middle of the week like years past when teams would build track-specific cars. The new car has much fewer tolerances as a cost-saving measure.

Check back at NASCAR Fanhouse throughout the week for recaps and speeds or bookmark NASCAR Testing for complete testing coverage.