After nearly 10 days filled with season-opening competition at Daytona, it’s on to this weekend’s events at Auto Club Speedway, where several drivers hope to build — or continue — what they started on the East Coast.

A rain-shortened Daytona 500 is one factor.

Drivers completed 152 of 200 laps before last Sunday’s race was called due to weather, negating all the what-ifs and last-laps strategy.

For drivers like Tony Stewart (No. 14 Old Spice Chevrolet), Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin, that left some unfinished business.

All three veterans began 2009 with strong showings and consideration as Daytona 500 contenders.

Gordon, who started third and finished 13th, had bounced back from being a lap down (due to a green-flag pit stop). He led 14 laps, one of nine drivers who led at least one Daytona 500 lap.

Winless in 2008, Gordon now has additional motivation to do so in 2009, and, as noted above, has a stellar record at Auto Club Speedway.

In his first season as a driver-owner with Stewart-Haas Racing, Stewart — who’d earned a fifth-place Daytona starting spot — actually started at the rear of the field because of a backup car. He lost his primary car after colliding with teammate Ryan Newman (No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet) in last Saturday’s final Daytona 500 practice.

Like Gordon, Stewart rebounded to lead laps — 15 of them. Unlike Gordon, who has three Daytona 500 wins, Stewart has none. He finished eighth last Sunday.

Martin, who’d secured the outside pole, finished 16th in what many had described as his best shot to win his first-ever Daytona 500.

A four-time series runner-up, Martin had finished second to 2007 Daytona 500 champion Kevin Harvick by an eyelash — .020 seconds, the ninth-closest finish since the advent of electronic timing and scoring in 1993.

Martin, 50, is working a one-year contract with Hendrick Motorsports. He likely approaches Auto Club Speedway with optimism, as he won the track’s second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race there in February 1998.

Stewart hasn’t won at the Southern California track, but he has three top fives and seven top 10s in 15 career starts there. He also ranks in the top 10 of six pre-race Loop Data categories, including fourth in Fastest Laps Run (131), sixth in Average Green Flag Speed (171.244 mph), Laps in the Top 15 (1,487) and Quality Passes (384), seventh in Average Running Position (11.1) and eighth in Driver Rating (97.8).