By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor

Ahead of each NASCAR race weekend, Kickin’ the Tires previews the upcoming races, looking at the storylines entering the events while highlighting when and where to watch them. 

Weekend Schedule

Friday, March 9

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice: 12:35-1:25 p.m. (FOX Sports 1)

NASCAR XFINITY Series practice: 2:05-2:55 p.m. (FOX Sports 1)

NASCAR XFINITY Series final practice: 4:05-4:55 p.m. (FOX Sports 1)

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying: 5:15 p.m (FOX Sports 1) 

Saturday, March 3

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice: 12-12:55 p.m. (FOX Sports 1)

NASCAR XFINITY Series qualifying: 1:05 p.m. (FOX Sports 1)

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice: 2:30-3:20 p.m. (FOX Sports 1)

NASCAR XFINITY Series DC Solar 200: 4:00 p.m. (FOX)

Sunday, Feb. 25

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Ticket Guardian 500: 3:30 p.m. (FOX)

(All times ET)

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series

Race Name: Ticket Guardian 500

Track: ISM Raceway (Avondale, Az.)

Race Length: 312 laps, 312 miles

Race Stages (Laps): 75, 75, 162

Track Length: 1 mile

Track Record: 143.158 mph (Jimmie Johnson, 2015)

What Happened Last Year: Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott dominated the day, leading 220 of the race’s 312 laps. But in the end it was Ryan Newman prevailing after the Richard Childress Racing veteran stayed on-track during a late round of pit stops. The win was the first for Newman since his 2013 victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

What to Watch For

Happy vs. the World

It’s Kevin Harvick’s world. The rest of the field just lives in it.

That’s the way NASCAR’s seemed to be for the past two weeks, hasn’t it? Harvick has ran through both the Xfinity Series and Cup Series with reckless abandon, leading a combined 536 laps out of a possible 755 – just under 71% of all laps ran in races he’s participated in.

The 2014 Cup champion won all three races, claiming 13 playoff points on the Cup side and keeping anyone else from gaining them in Xfinity.

The good news for the field is that NASCAR is heading to a different type of track this week, far removed from the 1.5-mile ovals Atlanta Motor Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The bad news is that Harvick might be even better at this one.

The Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) star has eight Cup win at Phoenix, with six of those triumphs coming in the past 11 races. Harvick has yet to finish worse than sixth on the one-mile oval since his 2014 move to SHR, and he’s led 994 laps during the tenure.

Whether they hail from the Toyota groups of Joe Gibbs Racing and Furniture Row Racing, the struggling Chevrolet bunch with Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing, or even Harvick’s own teammates at Ford, the entire field are currently looking for a way to beat the 42-year-old.

That storyline figures to be prominent throughout the weekend in Phoenix, where Harvick’s name is already synonymous with success.

Faulty Equipment

When a handful of top-tier Cup teams experienced problems with NASCAR’s new spec pit guns at Atlanta, the issue could be brushed off as an unexpected bug amid the launch of a new product.

When they occurred again in Las Vegas, the failures became a trend.

A handful of NASCAR’s top teams have experienced problems with the Paoli-produced products, fostering concern among the garage area that races could be lost to circumstances outside of a team’s control on pit road.

The crews of Alex Bowman, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. experienced issues in Atlanta. One week later there were faults on stops for Busch, Harvick and Daniel Suarez, the last of which prompted NASCAR to officially review the No. 19 team’s incident after the race.

While a myriad of gun issues were the last thing NASCAR or the teams wanted to see early in the season, the problem may only persist in the short-term, with the sanctioning body and Paoli both working to remedy their faults as the season goes on.

It should also be noted that only the sport’s top teams – many of which had invested deeply in proprietary pit gun technology prior to the move – seem to be experiencing issues to date, unless the smaller teams on the circuit are finding misfortune as well and failing to shed light on it.

But while the above statements may be true, the guns having problems have become an undeniable trend through the past two races. That makes them a feature to watch throughout the upcoming weekend in Phoenix.

Bowtie Blues

They may have won the season-opening Daytona 500 thanks to Austin Dillon’s controversial late overtake of Aric Almirola, but in the two weeks since that maiden triumph Chevrolet has had little to celebrate from their new Camaro ZL1 on-track.

Atlanta and Las Vegas were both brutal to the Bowtie Brigade. Ryan Newman’s 17 laps led in the opening stage at Atlanta were the only circuits they paced in Cup at either track. They scored just three top 10s between the two races, with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyle Larson claimed two of them, including the group’s only top five with his third-place run in Vegas.

Hendrick Motorsports struggled mightily, with more crashes (two) than top 10s (one). Chase Elliott led the way for the team with a top 10 in Atlanta, but when he was taken out by the errant Kurt Busch early in Las Vegas there was no one on the team to take his place.

Rookie William Byron has struggled. Alex Bowman hasn’t fared much better. It took seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson three races – or five if you count the two exhibition events during Speedweeks – just to make it to the checkered flag on the lead lap, and it ended unceremoniously with Johnson and his No. 48 team happy to salvage a 12th-place result.

Times have been tough for the Chevy group. Only Larson and Dillon find themselves inside of the top 10 in points, and the other Bowtie drivers in the current playoff grid – Newman, Darrell Wallace Jr. and Chris Buescher – are all holding on the the final spots on the grid due to strong runs in Daytona.

There’s still plenty of time for Chevrolet to right the ship and bounce back. They didn’t get to display any changes they may have made after Atlanta due to the hectic travel schedule associated with the West Coast Swing, so Phoenix should offer a first glimpse at the team after making improvements.

Last year the Arizona desert proved to be the site where the manufacturer scored an upset win from Newman that helped bolster their playoff field. The company could use a similar result this year if they intend to right the ship.

If that can’t happen, something a little better than the beatdown from the prior two weeks would at least be a nice change of pace.

         Ticket Guardian 500 Entry List

NASCAR XFINITY Series

Race Name: DC Solar 200

Track: ISM Raceway (Avondale,Az.)

Race Length: 200 laps, 200 miles

Race Stages (Laps): 45, 45, 110

Track Length: 1 mile

Track Record: 141.933 mph (Kyle Busch, 2015)

What Happened Last Year: Justin Allgaier led a race-high 85 laps and prevailed on the final run to the checkered flag to claim his first win for JR Motorsports, adding early stock to the veteran’s Xfinity title chase.

What to Watch For

Cup Series Domination…?

Until the regular season draws to a close, the dominance of Cup drivers competing for Cup teams will be an inescapable storyline for NASCAR’s second series.

But if Justin Allgaier proved anything last season, the desert could offer an oasis for the tour’s regulars.

ISM Raceway has traditionally been a source of Cup Series beatdowns in the Xfinity Series, with the premier series stars winning nine-straight races from 2012 through 2016. But the 2017 season saw hope for the tour’s own crop of drivers, with Allgaier and William Byron each claiming a race on the oval.

The Xfinity competitors will hope to keep that streak alive this weekend. Drivers like Christopher Bell, Daniel Hemric and Tyler Reddick will try to make their name against the sport’s best on one of NASCAR’s most unique facilities.

Whether they’ll accomplish the feat remains to be seen. But if last season is any indication, then their odds may be higher at Phoenix than anywhere else they’ll see for the foreseeable future.

Shaking Up the Standings

Xfinity Series teams are set to complete their fourth race of the young season this week, which will make the regular season roughly 15% complete.

The number, while still small, is rising toward the quarter mark, which means the tour is slowly transitioning into the midseason. Trends are starting to show, contenders are making their presence felt, and a few unfortunate groups are digging themselves into holes they may never climb out of.

While it may seem early, the time is quickly coming for Xfinity teams and drivers to start monitoring the tour’s points standings, to see where they stand and understand what they need to do in order to rise to where they believe they should be.

Why? Because in the Xfinity Series, regular season points are paramount to success.

Cup drivers win every week at the highest level, and in the Camping World Truck Series victories for series regulars are far more prevalent than they are on the sport’s second series. That means teams in those levels can solidify their postseason position with a bevy of playoff points, positioning themselves far ahead of their competition like Truex did en-route to his 2017 Cup title.

In the Xfinity Series playoff points are difficult to come by. Many of the 12 teams that survive to the postseason will likely enter it without having earned a single one for a stage or race win.

That means the bonus playoff points that are awarded to the top 10 in the points standings at the end of the regular season are crucial. Earning them is the only guaranteed way for a series regular to ensure that they have an advantage when the postseason comes without taking bold risks to try to beat their Cup counterparts.

Elliott Sadler parlayed his playoff points into a Championship 4 visit despite never winning a race last season. There’s a good chance someone will do the same this year, which means that it’s never too early to start looking at points.

                           DC Solar 200 Entry List