FONTANA, Calif. -- Shortly after climbing out of his No. 24 Chevrolet and discussing his strange Sunday briefly with crew chief Steve Letarte and a gaggle of other Hendrick Motorsports officials who were huddled in a small, serious group, driver Jeff Gordon was handed a very special package.

Hoisting his daughter, Ella, under his left arm, Gordon told her, "You make me smile."

That was no easy feat Sunday after all Gordon endured for more than three and a half hours on the 2-mile track at Auto Club Speedway. In the span of about 10 laps beginning when Gordon first came over his radio to report to Letarte that he suspected engine trouble on Lap 174, Gordon went from thinking he might just win the Auto Club 500 to fearing that he wouldn't even finish it.

In the end, he had to settle for something in between.

When Gordon reported to Letarte that the engine was missing, Letarte told his driver: "Run it for all it's worth. The rain is coming."

And it did, bringing out the caution on Lap 194. But the rain showers didn't last for long -- while the engine problems for the No. 24 car did.

"We were third or fourth and looking good," Gordon said. "The rain was coming. We weren't in bad shape. We certainly were in position to have a top-four or -five, if not have a chance at winning.

"Instead, now I'm feeling pretty fortunate that we finished 20th."

Letarte added: "Honestly when we were sitting fourth there and it was raining, I just wish it would have just gotten rained out there -- because we knew we had a motor problem, and I've never seen those fix themselves yet.

"It started to fire again, but you knew it was just temporary. Those things never fix themselves. So it would run for a little while and you'd start to think maybe you were going to be OK, and then on that one restart he got into the gas and there was nothing there, and then we gave up all that track position."

Letarte and Gordon said that their problems were related to spark plugs that were misfiring. At times over the final 75 laps the car would run smoothly on all cylinders -- and others, it was running on only seven or even just six.

"All I know is I was down two cylinders," Gordon said. "I don't know enough about spark plugs to know exactly what happened. But I know when an engine isn't running right."

Experiencing engine problems are nothing new for the Cup Series cars at Auto Club Speedway, which is considered one of the toughest tracks on the circuit for the punishment it deals out to the motors in the cars that dare to negotiate it.

And Gordon was not alone in having his engine go sour Sunday. The No. 56 Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. was running strong early in the race before faltering, taking him out after only 64 laps. Juan Montoya led the first 29 laps in his No. 42 Chevrolet, but his engine blew up on him on Lap 140. Seven laps after that, the No. 39 Chevy of Ryan Newman started billowing smoke and followed suit to the sidelines.

Several others battled various engine issues throughout the day.

"My best year ever, we did the same thing and came here to California and blew up in the second race of the season," Truex said. "So hopefully this will mean we're going to go on to have a good season again. ... That's the only way I can look at it."

Newman added: "We just lost an engine. We had a really horrible restart, and it just grenaded basically. I couldn't tell you what it was exactly, but it was big and there was smoke and that was the end of our day.

"Something let go in the bottom of the motor. I spun my tires on the restart, but didn't over-rev it or anything. It was a horrible restart on my part. But either way, it grenaded and that was the end of our day."

Winning crew chief Chad Knaus explained that all the grenades going off around him sure made him edgy, especially when his own driver, Jimmie Johnson, complained about the engine in their No. 48 Chevrolet not making enough power. It was then that Knaus wondered if it might be related to the problems he already knew Newman and Gordon had experienced in their Hendrick Motorsports engines.

"We were pretty nervous, actually, because Jimmie made a couple comments that he thought we were just a little bit down on power." Knaus said. "Then the [39] had their engine blew up and the 24 had a miss and then it cleared up, and then it came back, and I guess they struggled to the finish with it. So I was pretty concerned.

"This track is so difficult. It's not really the amount of RPMs you turn; it's the amount of RPM that you turn for the duration once you turn it. You're on the throttle for so long here. Once you start to move up the race track, your minimum RPM drops considerably and you carry a good sustained RPM all the way down the straightaways."

Sunday's strange weather didn't help, either, according to Knaus. The temperature dropped dramatically during the course of the 250-lap event as the sky over the track alternated between bright and sunny and dark and overcast.

"Obviously, with the fluctuation in ambient temperature, track temperature and air quality [Sunday], that played a contributing factor in that," Knaus added. "So this race track is really, really tough on engines. Plus, you have to realize that it's 500 miles. So it's a grueling place."

Gordon and Letarte know all about it.

"It was a crazy day for us. We struggled on new tires, but we were rocket fast," Gordon said. "We were driving up through there and came from 28th to the front, and that was a lot of fun. The pit stops were great. We were going to battle through the restarts no matter what, but then we had the problem with some spark plugs. It's something that we've seen in the past and felt like we had fixed. Now we have to go back and address it again."

Letarte added: "We saw it happen with Jimmie last year at Pocono. When it was running OK there at the end, I thought we were going to get back into the top 15. But then it went back out and we went to six or seven cylinders, and that's just not going to work around here.

"I will say Hendrick engines are as good as any out there. There is not another engine I would like to have in the car. And I'll also say that all 43 cars have to run on the same track. So to say it's hard on engines is like saying the tires are no good -- when everyone is running on the same tires. You just have to deal with it."

Some dealt with it better than others on Sunday.