Archive

on

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(October 9, 2010)

FONTANA, Calif.— Kyle Busch’s pit crew may well deserve the credit for winning Saturday’s CampingWorld.com 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Auto Club Speedway.

To Kevin Harvick, on the other hand, there was little doubt that his pit crew lost it.

Strong on short runs but no match for Harvick on longer ones, Busch rallied from a pit-road speeding penalty to beat NASCAR Nationwide points leader Brad Keselowski to the finish line by 1.034 seconds.

OPINION: HOW NASCAR SHOULD FIX THE NATIONWIDE SERIES

The victory was Busch’s 12th of the year (extending his single-season record), his fourth at the 2-mile track and the 42nd of his career—leaving him six behind series leader Mark Martin in career wins.

Harvick ran third, despite leading a race-high 86 laps. Carl Edwards, second in the series standings, came home fourth and trails Keselowski by 384 points with five races left. Joey Logano finished fifth.

Busch, who was penalized for speeding while entering pit road under caution on Lap 87, won for the third time this year after incurring a speeding penalty.

Danica Patrick saw a promising run spoiled when contact from James Buescher turned her No. 7 Chevrolet into the wall on Lap 141 of 150 to cause the sixth and final caution. Patrick was running 17th at the time, hoping for her first lead-lap finish in her eighth NASCAR Nationwide start, but the wreck relegated her to a 30th-place result.

Pit work on Lap 126 turned the race in Busch’s favor, after a 12.8-second stop got him away with the lead. Harvick’s crew had its third poor stop of the afternoon, leaving the driver of the No. 33 Chevrolet in sixth position for a restart on Lap 134.

Two cautions that punctuated the final 17 laps helped prevent Harvick from challenging Busch for the lead.

“The pit stops were what got us there,” Busch said, “just being able to have the guys give us a good pit stop on that last time and get out front when it mattered most and kind of set sail on the restarts.

“Harvick had a really, really good car on long runs. He showed that today—he probably had the best car. We could keep up with him for about eight or 10 laps, but after that, he started getting away from us.”

After the race, Harvick praised the team that prepared his car at his race shop and blasted his over-the-wall pit crew.

“The guys have done a great job in transitioning to some new setup packages and doing the things they need to do to make them fast—and those are the guys I feel the worst for,” Harvick said. “We’ve got guys that just roll up on the weekend and just flat-out aren’t doing a very good job on pit road.”

on

1 1 Jamie McMurray McDonald’s Chevrolet
2 19 Elliott Sadler Reynolds Wrap Ford
3 17 Matt Kenseth Crown Royal Ford
4 42 Juan Pablo Montoya Target Chevrolet
5 9 Kasey Kahne Budweiser Ford
6 56 Martin Truex Jr. NAPA Toyota
7 16 Greg Biffle 3M Ford
8 48 Jimmie Johnson Lowe’s/Jimmie Johnson Foundation Chevrolet
9 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet
10 20 Joey Logano Home Depot Toyota
11 5 Mark Martin CARQUEST/GoDaddy.com Chevrolet
12 13 Casey Mears GEICO Toyota
13 33 Clint Bowyer The Hartford Chevrolet
14 39 Ryan Newman Tornados Chevrolet
15 31 Jeff Burton Caterpillar Chevrolet
16 18 Kyle Busch M&M’s Toyota
17 24 Jeff Gordon DuPont/Pepsi Max Chevrolet
18 6 David Ragan UPS Freight Ford
19 78 Regan Smith Farm American Chevrolet
20 99 Carl Edwards Aflac Ford
21 29 Kevin Harvick Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet
22 14 Tony Stewart Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet
23 00 David Reutimann Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota
24 98 Paul Menard Vertis/Menards Ford
25 12 Brad Keselowski No. 12 Penske Dodge
26 47 Marcos Ambrose Little Debbie Toyota
27 83 Reed Sorenson Red Bull Toyota
28 46 Michael McDowell Whitney’s Collision Centers Chevrolet
29 82 Scott Speed Red Bull Toyota
30 43 A J Allmendinger Valvoline Ford
31 36 J J Yeley Tommy Baldwin Racing Chevrolet
32 38 David Gilliland Taco Bell Ford
33 66 Jason Leffler PRISM Motorsports Toyota
34 11 Denny Hamlin FedEx Office Toyota
35 87 Joe Nemechek NEMCO Motorsports Toyota
36 64 Landon Cassill Little Joe’s Autos Toyota
37 77 Sam Hornish Jr. Mobil 1 Dodge
38 2 Kurt Busch Operation Home Front/Miller Lite Dodge
39 37 Dave Blaney A&W All American Food Ford
40 34 Travis Kvapil Long John Silver’s Ford
41 7 Kevin Conway # Extenze Toyota
42 71 Andy Lally The Media Barons Chevrolet
43 09 Bobby Labonte Phoenix Construction Chevrolet

on

FYI WIRZ: NASCAR’s top drivers talk long and fast Fontana

The top five Chase drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this week; Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon talk the 2-mile D-shaped oval with 14 degree banking at Auto club Speedway in Fontana, California.

The Pepsi Max 400, race 4 in the 10-race Chase to the Sprint Cup, commences this Sunday at 3:00 p.m. on ESPN.

This fast series includes comments by three of NASCAR’s most popular drivers—Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

FYI WIRZ is the swift presentation of pertinent motorsports topics compiled, condensed and often written by Dwight Drum @ Racetake.com. Quotes provided by NASCAR and Sprint Cup team media.

Driver’s thoughts about Fontana and the Chase:

Jimmie Johnson (No.48 Chevrolet)

“I really enjoy the race track,” Johnson said. “I enjoy the weather, the atmosphere, In N Out Burger, Mexican restaurants I am fond of in the area. It is always good to go home. There is a certain feeling about it. I won my first race there. My 48th race there and there are a lot of cool things about that race track for me. Oh yea, fish tacos, lots of lime. Post race add a Corona to the mix and we are in good shape.”

Denny Hamlin (No. 11 Toyota)

“Any big track is good for us at this point, Hamlin said. “I feel like we’re definitely heading into some tracks that are definitely in our favor.

“California is a multi-groove race track, but it’s just a track where you have to setup your car on one specific line because when you run the top your car changes a whole lot different than what it is on the bottom. It’s very line sensitive track and the restarts are obviously interesting there because of the draft.”

Kevin Harvick (No. 29 Chevrolet)

“We’re looking forward to going back, Harvick said. “It’s been a good race track for us over the last few years. We have been consistent and had solid top-five finishes all year. So, we just have to keep doing those things, keep our cars in contention running up front, lead some laps and grab those bonus points when we can, and we’ll see where we are when we get to Homestead.”

Carl Edwards (No. 99 Ford)

“The strength of the Roush Fenway organization is as good as it’s ever been,” Edwards said. “We’re going to California which is a track we’ve had a lot of success at, and we’ve run very well as a team there. This is a track on the Chase schedule that I feel very confident at and feel like we have a great shot at a win there.”

Jeff Gordon (No. 24 Chevrolet)

“You have to have good power (at Auto Club Speedway), have to have good balance in the car,” Gordon said. “Right now there’s a lot of stuff going around the garage with teams that are trying to run soft in the back versus stiff in the back and at a track like that. You can really experiment with because the straight-aways are so long and it’s a big, fast race track to try to get the spoiler out of the air a little bit. Just trying to work that balance out.”

Tony Stewart (No. 14 Chevrolet)

“We’re not out until we’re mathematically out,” Stewart said. “Who would have dreamed we would have two weeks in a row like we had the first two weeks. So it’s proof it can happen. Talladega is still on the schedule (laughs) so that can jumble everything up too. So, we’ve just got to go out and do what we did at Kansas and that’s just go out and try to win the race and take what it gives us.”

Kasey Kahne (No.9 Ford)

“I like California,” Kahne said. “California doesn’t have a lot of banking but it is a pretty fast track. I think, like every track, getting the car to handle in the corners is the biggest thing. It’s a two-mile track and the front and back stretches are pretty long.

“There’s a lot of time at this track where you can relax going down the straightaway a little bit. The corners are so long that you can have a loose car and work through the corners a lot which can wear you out and get your heart rate up. I wouldn’t say that it’s one of the more physically demanding tracks.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88 Chevrolet)

“We have had some decent runs at California, but just haven’t had the luck and they are a good reference,” Earnhardt said. “The thing about California is that you can hunt around as the groove changes. You’ve got to have that adjustability in your setup. My teammates have been good there.”

Photo credit: Dwight Drum @ Racetake.com

ABOUT DWIGHT
Dwight Drum, a member of the National Motorsports Press Association, began in motorsports as a photojournalist and writer with Stripbike.com in 1998 and as editor created Zoomster.com (1999) and Racetake.com (2007). He has interviewed almost every big name in NASCAR, NHRA and IndyCar. He also has experience covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and has two stories in the 2010 book “Chicken Soup for the Soul: NASCAR.”

The opinions expressed in this articles are solely those of the author and not this website.