Take 5: Auto Club

NASCAR bid farewell to the West Coast Swing with its annual March trip to Auto Club Speedway, with Martin Truex Jr. preventing a Kevin Harvick sweep and posting his first victory of the season. Sorting through all the madcap restarts, plus the slipping and sliding on the well-aged asphalt, here's five topics to talk about from the Auto Club 400.

PENSKE POWER: With Stewart-Haas Racing's hottest driver eliminated from contention, Team Penske stepped in to carry the Ford banner at Auto Club Speedway. Brad Keselowski took fourth place with Joey Logano fifth as both ran among the front pack most of the day. Ryan Blaney's run to eighth place was more adventurous as he rallied back from an early scrape with the wall. The effort marked the second time this season that Team Penske has placed all three cars among the top 10.

JIMMIE'S MOVE: It probably counts as a baby step for a team and driver accustomed to contending for championships, but Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team came home ninth for their first top-10 result of the season. Johnson also finished among the points-earners in both stages, scratching that column for the first time this season. 'Yeah, each week we have been getting a little bit better,' Johnson said. 'We are definitely not happy with where we are right now but we are seeing the improvements, we have been seeing it internally.'

TRIED AND TRUEX: Any pre-race chatter hinting that Furniture Row Racing's start to the season was somehow off the pace was easily premature. While the spotlight on Kevin Harvick's red-hot streak overshadowed the No. 78 team's early performance, Truex dispelled any doubts Sunday with a convincing first win of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. Truex also got on the board with his first two stage wins of the season, propelling him to the series' points lead. It's far too early to anoint Truex as a prohibitive championship favorite, but the team's Sunday form -- reminiscent to several of his 2017 runs -- was certainly familiar.

THREE AND OUT: Kevin Harvick's chances at extending his win streak to a historic four in a row fizzled before the first stage was complete at the California track. Contact with Kyle Larson in the 37th lap sent his No. 4 Ford into the outside retaining wall and left him with a 35th-place effort, nine laps off the pace. It's been an all-or-nothing type of season in the results column for the 2014 series champ. His three wins have been bookended by a crash-related 31st (Daytona) and his Auto Club 35th.

CUE THE HOT DOGS: The Monster Energy Series heads back East for the first short-track race of the season at Martinsville Speedway, the oldest track on the circuit. The .526-mile Virginia bullring teems with tradition, from its close-quarters action to the famous hot dogs -- still a relative bargain at $2. The track's history has smiled on Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin several times, but recent races have been more of a mixture of faces in Victory Lane. The potential for controversy -- see Hamlin's battle with Chase Elliott last fall -- adds an extra layer of intrigue.