Kenseth keeps Gordon at bay for victory at Fontana

FONTANA, Calif. -- Matt Kenseth is making up for lost time -- with a lot of help from his friends on pit road.

Winless in 2008, Kenseth backed up his victory in the season-opening Daytona 500 by holding off Jeff Gordon in Sunday's Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway.

With a lightning-fast pit stop, Kenseth's crew made sure his No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford was first off pit road for a restart on Lap 216, after Kevin Harvick slammed the Turn 1 wall to cause the fifth and final caution of the 250-lap race.

"It's such a great team," Kenseth said. "I just thank these guys [on the crew]. They gave me a great stop and got me in clean air and that's just a huge difference."

Kenseth, who won for the 18th time in the Cup Series, stayed in front the rest of the way and beat Gordon to the finish line by 1.463 seconds to become the fifth driver in Cup history to win the first two races of a season. The last to do so? Gordon in 1997, at Daytona and Rockingham.

Kyle Busch finished third and fell short in his bid to sweep all three races in NASCAR's top series at the same track in the same weekend. On Saturday, Busch won both the Camping World Truck Series and the Nationwide Series races at the 2.0-mile race track.

"It's never been done before, so you know it's a challenge," Busch said. "The last one's always the hard one to get. It's on Sunday and it's the biggest show. Maybe one day."

Busch never thought he had a winning car and was trying to hold onto third in the closing laps.

"I couldn't even challenge them," Busch said of Kenseth and Gordon. "I couldn't even keep up with the 17 and the 24 on that last run."

Greg Biffle recovered from a pit-road mistake to come home fourth, followed by Kurt Busch. Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson and Brian Vickers completed the top 10.

"They should fire me," Biffle said. "You just can't make mistakes like that."

Because Gordon had caught and passed him on the previous green-flag run, Kenseth wasn't confident he could hold him off.

"I thought he was going to pass us," Kenseth said. "As many laps as were left, I honestly thought we were going to be too loose at the end, and he was going to catch us."

Gordon was ambivalent about the result, which showed marked improvement over last year but left him winless since October 2007.

"I think we're head-and-shoulders above where we were," Gordon said. "I know we're just a couple races in, and this is one race, but I just loved the way the car was driving. To be able to battle and go to the front like that and have solid pit stops, I'm just really excited -- and also really bummed out we didn't win the race [Sunday night].

Notes
• The engine and right-front tire blew on Harvick's Chevrolet on Lap 208, and he retired from the race, ending a modern era record streak of 81 races without a DNF.
• Hendrick Motorsports teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin suffered rare engine failures; they finished 39th and 40th, respectively. "Something broke in the motor," Earnhardt said.
• NASCAR called four of the five cautions because of light rain.

Press Pass
• Kenseth | Gordon | Busch

The Associated Press contributed to this report.