Catch all the sounds from the Auto Club 400
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No. 2 team falls one top-five short of matching Dale Earnhardt’s 1995 season-opening run
Auto Club 400: Complete results
Sprint Cup Series: Points standings
FONTANA, Calif. — While his teammate was out on the frontstretch mixing it up with a host of unhappy competitors, Brad Keselowski stood in the garage area of Auto Club Speedway surveying his race car. Early in Sunday’s event, his vehicle looked like one of the top contenders for the victory. By late afternoon, it was barely hanging on.
Keselowski weathered a Friday engine change that forced him to start at the rear of the field, but he couldn’t overcome an oil slick and an overheating backup motor that combined to end his impressive season-opening streak of top-five finishes. The reigning Sprint Cup Series champion came to Southern California in the points lead, and as the only driver to have finished in the top five in all four previous races this year. He left with a 23rd-place result, and staring up at Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the standings.
Keselowski was one of several drivers who banged off the wall after Timmy Hill’s No. 32 car broke an oil line and doused the track surface in fluid. Although his vehicle was never the same after that, pit strategy helped Keselowski get up to fifth on the final restart, keeping alive hope of extending the streak — until the No. 2 Ford plummeted through the field at the green flag.
“It was a great streak,” said Keselowski, now second in points, 12 behind Earnhardt. “We had a shot at winning the race if the 32 car doesn’t blow up in front of us. Four or five cars got hurt in that deal. There’s no reason for that guy to do that. Disappointed in him. But eventually they’re going to throw circumstances at you that you just can’t control. That happens to everybody.”
"We had a shot at winning the race if the 32 car (Timmy Hill) doesn’t blow up in front of us."
—Brad Keselowski
Early on, it looked as if Keselowski had a real chance to match Dale Earnhardt, who reeled off five consecutive top-fives to open the 1995 campaign. Keselowski and Ford stable mate Greg Biffle both changed engines Friday, but showed speed even with their backups in practice and qualifying. Forced to vacate his third-place starting position because of NASCAR’s one-engine rule, Keselowski started at the rear and quickly advanced through the field, cracking the top 15 within 30 laps of the green flag.
“Making it look easy right now,” spotter Joey Meier told him. But Keselowski, Clint Bowyer, Jeff Gordon and last week’s winner Kasey Kahne were in the wrong place at the wrong time when Hill’s oil line cracked, dropping fluid in the path of the cars behind him. Keselowski banged off the wall, and after that the vehicle was never as fast as it had been early in the race.
“I just feel like when I hit the wall I took some speed out of this car, Paul, and I don’t know where it’s at,” Keselowski said over the radio. When the event was over, his crew chief could see why.
“The thing is, this is one of the fastest tracks we go to, so any little bit, these cars are real sensitive to that,” Wolfe said after the race. “I’m not sure if we possibly knocked the front toe off a little bit. There was a good bit of paint in the rim, so we hit pretty hard in the front. After that, we were just trying to get it back so we could have a good day.”
It was an uphill battle. Keselowski and Wolfe used a late two-tire stop to regain some of their lost track position, but they couldn’t hold onto it. For much of the event Keselowski showed concern over his engine temperature, at one point radioing that he had smoke in the cockpit. “Temps skyrocketing here,” Keselowski said. The smoke may have eventually abated, but the worry never did.
“Something broke on the motor,” Keselowski said afterward. “It was all we could do to finish.”
The No. 22 car of his Penske Racing teammate Joey Logano also ran hot — in more ways than one, given how he pinched Denny Hamlin into the wall on the event’s final lap, sparking a brawl between him and the crews of several teams on the frontstretch — but had so much on the line he pushed it to the end. The No. 2 team wasn’t in the same position, so they played it safe trying to get to the end.
“It came to a point where (Keselowski) thought we were going to blow up if we didn’t just ride around the last however many laps it was, nine or 10,” Wolfe said. “It was more a matter of being able to finish. Obviously, the 22 was hot as well. They were pushing water the whole way. But they were contending for a win, so at that point you just go for it. But once we slid back there a little bit, at that point we might as well get out of it and make sure we don’t blow up.”
That’s quite a contrast to how the car was at the start. “I thought we could win the race,” Keselowski. But at the end, with an engine running hot and a posse of drivers on fresher tires behind him, not even the last-gasp pit strategy move was enough to keep him near the front.
“Just one of those days,” Wolfe said. “But real pleased with where we’re at from a car handling side. Hands down, I feel like (Penske) had the two best cars here in the race today. We drove from 40th to 15th faster than I expected, and I think we were showing them we were one of the best cars out there.”
As the race ended, though, so did Keselowski’s top-five streak. Asked if the No. 2 team was capable of starting another one, Wolfe just smiled. “Absolutely,” the crew chief said. “Absolutely.”
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Consecutive top-five finishes have Busch, Furniture Row Racing riding high
Auto Club 400: Complete results
Video: Busch hits oil slick
FONTANA, Calif. — There, walking through the Auto Club Speedway garage sporting a big smile and easy stride, was Sunday’s fifth-place finisher Kurt Busch. His pleased and pleasant demeanor was in stark contrast to the post-race chaos of crew scuffles and driver feuds demanding so much attention in the moments following the Auto Club 400.
It was Busch’s second straight top-five performance in the No. 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet — a single car effort that with the former Sprint Cup champion behind the wheel is proving itself every bit as worthy as the uber-teams and perennial favorites it competes alongside.
And lately, it has been better.
"… This is what it’s all about — just keep plugging away and surprising people."
— Kurt Busch
The driving display Busch put on in the final laps left no doubt to his intentions: to show this team is for real and that he has never been more motivated.
“I was just telling everybody that this is what it’s all about,’’ said Busch, who seemed every bit as happy as his younger brother Kyle, who won the race for the large championship Joe Gibbs Racing operation.
“Persevering, digging hard, and bringing it right back up to the front when it counts. You can race 400 miles and be leading every lap like Kyle was and I had a chance to pass him for the lead on that final restart and I took it.
“Normally, I’d have followed him and pushed him and drafted with him and tried to break away from the field,’’ explained Busch. “But I went to his outside and it was a move that held him up and took his momentum away, gave me a shot for clean air … but the car was a little tight on that top side, couldn’t quite get the power down and couldn’t get in front of him and (Joey) Logano to seal the deal.
“For our Furniture Row Chevy SS, another top-five, this is what it’s all about — just keep plugging away and surprising people.’’
Arguably, the surprise is up.
Since Busch joined the team late last year, he has five top 10s in 11 starts. The back-to-back top-five showing is a first ever for the nine-year-old team, which operates out of Denver, far from NASCAR’s backyard. Although Furniture Row Racing started entering Cup races in 2005, it wasn’t until 2010 that it actually qualified for every race in a season.
Former driver Regan Smith has the team’s only victory — a dramatic upset in the 2011 Darlington 500.
The team stepped up its program this season by using Richard Childress Racing engines and chassis and hiring the 2004 Cup champion Busch.
And while it hoped for immediate dividends, the pairing has reaped confidence and potential at the very least.
Busch’s effort Sunday moved him up three spots in the championship standings to 13th place — ahead of preseason championship favorites such as last year’s title runner-up Clint Bowyer (14th), Richard Childress driver Kevin Harvick (15th), four-time champ Jeff Gordon (18th) and three-time champ Tony Stewart (22nd).
This is a team that wrecked in the opening practice for the Daytona 500 and is now one position shy of being Chase-worthy.
On a smaller scale, both of Busch’s top-five showings have come after early-race adversity.
This week he qualified 10th and was running top-five when on Lap 37 of 200, he ran over oil from a damaged car and dinged the wall. He had to bring the Chevrolet into pit road twice for repairs and had to overcome a pit-road penalty, turning the day into a high-speed game of catch-up.
With methodical insistence — and the benefit of a Lucky Dog pass to get back on the lead lap — he climbed back among the top 10 with 20 laps to go and he was second on a restart with 10 to go. Initially, he was credited with a third-place finish, but a scoring review showed he was fifth.
“Today was very similar to last week in Bristol when we had to overcome a number of issues,” Busch said. “We had a loose wheel and damage to our front-end before finishing fourth in Bristol.
“This week it was getting into someone else’s oil before slapping the fence and then being penalized for speeding on pit road.
“Though we never quit, and do the best we can to fight back, it sure would be nice to have a smooth race, something we haven’t had this year.”
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"Arranque De Pasion, La Historia De Ela" will premiere on April 1
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR and Univision will make history on April 1 as “Arranque de Pasión, La Historia de Ela,” the first-ever sports-themed original project for the leading media company serving Hispanic America, debuts in the U.S. and Puerto Rico on Univision.com. Following five consecutive weeks of three new five-to-seven-minute episodes, this NASCAR-themed drama will air an edited version in a special primetime network television debut on Univision on Sunday, May 5.
Earlier that day, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series will also celebrate its return to the famous Talladega Superspeedway with the 44th running of the Aaron’s 499 (FOX and FOX Deportes, 1 p.m. ET).
“Arranque de Pasión, La Historia de Ela,” is a co-production between Univision Studios and Kate Del Castillo Productions, Inc., in association with NASCAR. The drama stars internationally acclaimed television and motion picture actress Kate del Castillo, who served as Honorary Starter for the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. on Sunday, as well as leading men Carlos Ponce and Christian Meier. Shot at Homestead-Miami Speedway, “Arranque de Pasión, La Historia de Ela” is also NASCAR’s first-ever Spanish language original production.
“Novelas are a popular genre for Univision and Hispanic audiences, and we think NASCAR is a very exciting universe for storytelling and unique original projects like ‘Arranque de Pasión, La Historia de Ela,’” said Zane Stoddard, NASCAR vice president of entertainment marketing and business development. “We have developed a great relationship with Univision over the last several years, and this project is a wonderful opportunity to introduce Univision’s millions of online and television viewers to the excitement and passion of NASCAR.”
Following the premiere on Monday, April 1, a new episode will be released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, midnight ET, for five consecutive weeks, culminating with the Univision network television special on Sunday, May 5. NovelasySeries.com will also provide compelling behind-the-scenes footage, exclusive content, character bios, previews, recaps, trivia and much more for users to engage with before, during and after each episode airs.
“Univision Studios is pleased to partner with NASCAR and Kate del Castillo Productions, Inc. to debut a compelling novela that takes place in the exhilarating world of NASCAR,” said Luis Fernandez, president of Univision Studios. “This new project will allow us to continue our commitment of offering Hispanic America culturally relevant content across platforms, including online and on mobile.”
NASCAR’s Los Angeles-based Entertainment Marketing division continues to focus on integrating NASCAR into mainstream pop culture through original productions, television show integrations and at-track celebrity appearances. In addition to “Arranque de Pasión,” other recent projects include Joey Logano appearing on Cartoon Network’s Hall of Game Awards, actor James Franco serving as Grand Marshal for the Daytona 500 and Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart “guest-starring” on The Cleveland Show.
Viewers can join the conversation regarding this first-of-its-kind novella on Twitter via @Univision, @vivanascar and @NASCAR as well as comment along with others on Facebook.com/Univision.
For more information on “Arranque de Pasión, La Historia de Ela,” visit Univision.com.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series continues on Sunday, April 7 with the STP Gas Booster 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX) from Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.
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Driver uncertain for Martinsville race; will meet with specialist later this week
Joe Gibbs Racing officials announced that driver Denny Hamlin suffered a L1 compression fracture during Sunday’s last-lap crash in the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway.
Hamlin, who was released from the hospital Monday night according to JGR, is scheduled to be evaluated by Dr. Jerry Petty later this week in North Carolina.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is off until April 5-7 when the series heads to Martinsville Speedway.
Video: Hamlin, Logano wreck | Stewart confronts Logano
Following contact with Joey Logano’s Penske Racing Ford during Sunday’s race, Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota struck the inside wall near the entrance to pit road with such force that the impact lifted Hamlin’s car completely off the ground.
Although he was able to climb from his car without assistance, Hamlin quickly went to the pavement. Rescue workers placed him on a stretcher and, after being evaluated in the track’s infield medical center, Hamlin was flown to a local hospital and held overnight.
Logano had the lead on the final restart of the race, which came with 11 laps remaining. With less than three laps left, Hamlin had caught Logano; heading across the start/finish line for the final lap the two were side-by-side.
The two cars remained door to door down the backstretch. As they raced into Turn 4, Logano’s car went high, made contact and eventually came across the nose of Hamlin’s Toyota. Logano struck the outside wall while Hamlin spun and slid straight toward the inside barrier.
“He probably shouldn’t have done what he did last week,” Logano said afterward, “so that’s what he gets.” Logano was reportedly unaware that Hamlin had been injured and was to be transported to a local hospital when asked about the last-lap incident.
It was the second consecutive week that Logano and Hamlin had been involved in late-race contact. A week earlier at Bristol Motor Speedway, Logano was running second to Jeff Gordon when Hamlin, who was third, nudged the 22-year-old driver, sending Logano’s car into the wall.
Moments after the race, Logano approached Hamlin to express his displeasure, leading to a shoving match between the crews of the two drivers.
“That’s a freaking genius behind the wheel of the 11 car,” Logano said later. “Probably the worst teammate I ever had, so I learned that now. He decided to run himself into the back of me, so, whatever. I have a scorecard and I’m not putting up with that.”
The two were teammates until JGR replaced Logano during the offseason with 2003 Sprint Cup Series champion Matt Kenseth. Logano moved to Penske, where he is now paired with defending series champion Brad Keselowski.
“He pinched me up against the wall twice and really, had I not checked up, he would have been in the garage anyway with no radiator,” Hamlin previously said of the Bristol incident. “It’s just one of those things. It’s Bristol racing.”
Hamlin, who has 22 career wins in the Cup series, was credited with a 25th-place finish Sunday. He is 10th in the series’ points standings.
Logano, who finished third Sunday, currently is ninth in the standings.
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WATCH: Logano, Hamlin
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Count down the weekend’s top-five moments from Auto Club Speedway
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Kyle Busch gets the weekend sweep at Auto Club Speedway
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Recapture the key moments from Kyle Busch’s victory in Sunday’s Auto Club 400.
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Junior takes the high road to continue top-10 streak
FONTANA, Calif. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. wanted to get to the top of the race track. And on Sunday’s final restart he managed to do just that, riding it right to the top of the standings in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
“The restart before, he wanted to be on the top, and he went to the bottom and it didn’t work,” said Steve Letarte, Earnhardt’s crew chief. “I could tell he was very upset with himself. So we were pretty confident that he was going to the top. And he went to the top, top, tippy-top.”
Indeed, there was Earnhardt making one of his patented runs in the high line over the final green-flag run Sunday at Auto Club Speedway, gaining one spot after another and clawing his way to second behind winner Kyle Busch. In the race, he was helped by the mutual assured destruction that rivals Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin unleashed on one another. In the standings, he was helped by a damaged race car that couldn’t keep Brad Keselowski at the front.
"We were pretty good at closing races, something I never really was good at for years, and now we’re doing it as good as anybody."
— Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And in the end there was Earnhardt, picking his way through the field before swooping low to avoid the fracas in front of him, and using his second-place result to seize a 12-point lead over Keselowski in the standings.
“We just stick together,” said Earnhardt, the only driver to finish inside the top 10 in each of the first five events this season. “We were pretty good at closing races, something I never really was good at for years, and now we’re doing it as good as anybody. Just riding the wave. Just real happy with how things are going for our team.”
Earnhardt made up 17 spots over the 10-lap green-flag run that closed the race, and assumed the lead in the standings after Keselowski finished 23rd. Sunday marked the first time NASCAR’s most popular driver had led the Sprint Cup Series since last summer, when he was on top for two weeks. Earnhardt ultimately finished 12th in the standings last season after sitting out two races due to concussion symptoms.
“I’d really like it if it were after race 36,” Letarte said, referring to the final points event of the season.
Even so, the top spot is indicative of the consistency Earnhardt and his No. 88 team have shown since last season.
“We’re racing very well,” Letarte added. “I don’t think we’ve had the best cars. I think we’ve had good cars. I don’t think we’ve been bad. But we’re racing vey well, and it feels good to race well. I know that sounds silly, but sometimes we get lost in all this practice speeds and social media and the world and they report every lap and every this and every that. It’s a contest of not just speed, but the guy has to get to the finish. You’ve got to do pit stops, you’ve got to do restarts, you’ve got to communicate. We had a lot of stuff not go our way today, so to recover and come back was pretty nice.”
No question, Sunday featured its challenges, most notably a 21-second pit stop caused by a dropped lug nut that mired Earnhardt back in 22nd with — appropriately enough — 88 laps remaining. “Guys, we can’t have those,” Letarte told his crew over the radio, sounding like a school principal disappointed in a prized student. Earnhardt urged his team to shake it off. “Just a blip on the radar,” the driver said.
“We dropped a lug nut and just didn’t do a very efficient job of putting it back on,” Letarte said after the race. “We’ll have to practice that. Because you can’t drop a lug nut and have a 21-second pit stop. It needs to be a 16- or a 15-second pit stop. But it’s hard to say much, because man, they have saved the car enough times over the last 10 or 15 races, and I think everybody heard that in Dale’s voice in the car. He has a lot more patience, because he sees the potential there.”
In what would become a bit of foreshadowing for the end of the race, Earnhardt rapidly picked his way up through traffic. Soon enough, he was back up to 10th. “Hell yeah, buddy. Doing awesome,” Letarte told him over the radio.
“Everybody just kind of patted each other on the back, and we were going to get another chance to redeem ourselves on pit road,” Earnhardt said afterward. “We had a good car. On that next restart we drove back up to 10th before the next caution, so I felt like we were back up in position to run well and everything was fine. We got a good pit stop on the next caution, and put that mistake behind us.”
The pit crew was flawless at the end, although Earnhardt did drop back in traffic once again after a late set of tires didn’t agree with his car. It all set the stage for the finish, where Earnhardt was able to take four tires under the last caution and get into his preferred restart position. On the last one, he was right where he wanted to be. And as Earnhardt has done so many times on big tracks, he climbed up the race track and made his climb to the front.
“He’s a great closer, and I don’t think he gets enough credit for that,” Letarte said. In fact, according to NASCAR Loop Data, Earnhardt leads the Sprint Cup Series in the Closers statistic, gaining 26 positions in the final 10 percent of races this season for an average of 5.2 spots gained per race.
“Unfortunately, it hasn’t been for the wins, so maybe that’s why they haven’t seen it. But … the last 20 percent of every race, I think we’ve done the most gaining of about anybody. So that feels good to do.”
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Stewart calls Logano rich kid who never had to work
FONTANA, Calif. — After trading barbs on Twitter a week ago, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano actually traded paint on Sunday, throwing away their chances to win the Auto Club 400 by banging each other into oblivion on the final lap at Auto Club Speedway.
But it was Logano’s row with Tony Stewart that led to the most heated exchange of the season so far, first as Stewart tried to get a piece of Logano on pit road and later as the three-time champion roasted the 22-year-old with criticism that turned very personal.
The Hamlin-Logano feud, which ignited last week at Bristol when Hamlin’s attempted bump-and-run sent Logano’s Ford spinning into the wall, escalated at Fontana, as Hamlin drove to the outside of Logano to start the final lap and the drivers traded shots until they wrecked in Turn 3 — to the benefit of Kyle Busch, who was running third at the time and won the race.
Logano was credited with a third-place finish, but Hamlin’s car slammed nose-first into the inside wall. Hamlin was airlifted to a local hospital and kept overnight for precautionary evaluation.
But it was Logano’s block of Stewart on the final restart on Lap 190 that had Stewart seething after the race, to the point where he nosed in front of Logano’s car on pit road (stopping its progress), climbed out and confronted the young driver before crew members intervened.
Logano acknowledged that the block was a deliberate attempt to win the race.
“I had to throw the block there,” Logano said. “That was a race for the lead. I felt if the 14 (Stewart) got underneath me, that was going to be the end of my opportunity to win the race, so I was just trying to protect the spot I had. I was actually pedaling, because I couldn’t keep the 18 (race leader Kyle Busch) aligned (in front of Logano’s No. 22 Ford, as the rules require on a restart).
“I was actually faster than the 18 getting our tires hooked up. And then I’m trying to stagger myself making sure I don’t beat him to the line, and then I had to block the 14 because I was pedaling it. I’ll talk to him and we’ll see what happens.”
"He’s nothing but a little rich kid who’s never had to work in his life."
—Tony Stewart, on Joey Logano
Stewart was having none of it.
“He’s going to learn a lesson,” Stewart said. “He’s run his mouth long enough … He’s nothing but a little rich kid who’s never had to work in his life, so he’s going to learn what us working guys who had to work our way up … how it works.
“He has the choice to do that. He’s in control of his car. But if he ever turns down across in front of me again — I don’t car what lap it is — he won’t make it through the other end of it… I’m tired of these guys doing that stuff, especially out of a kid that’s been griping about everybody else — and then he does that the next week … send Denny to the hospital and screw our day up.
“He’s talked the talk, but he hasn’t walked the walk yet. He’s always got his crew guys walking the walk for him.”
Both Stewart and Logano will have to let things simmer for two weeks. The next NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race is April 7 at Martinsville, where frayed tempers are commonplace.
VICTORY THICKER THAN BLOOD?
Even though his brother Kyle was the race leader for the final restart with 11 laps to go, Kurt Busch made his move, taking the front row three-wide to the outside after Kyle took the green.
Kurt said he was glad his brother eventually won the race, but he didn’t regret taking his own shot at victory.
“In the end, I could have followed Kyle and just wanted to apologize to him for putting it three- and four-wide on the restart, because I’m hungry and going for the win, and it’s not normally a move you would make if you are pushing a brother,” Kurt said.
“I could have pushed him out to the lead earlier and maybe he could have held off the 22 (Joey Logano) and the 11 (Denny Hamlin), but I messed him up on the restart and I told him, I’m going for the win, and I am not going for anything less.”
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