NASCAR at California 2015 Results: Winner, Standings, Highlights and Reaction

The final leg of NASCAR's first trip to the West Coast finished with Brad Keselowski driving to Victory Lane for the first time this season at Auto Club Speedway. He led just one lap all day, but it just so happened to be the most important one to clinch a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.   

Keselowski has typically not fared well at Fontana, California. In six previous events at the track, the Team Penske driver had just one top-20 result. In a month of March Madness, it was a massive upset over two Stewart-Haas Racing drivers who dominated all day.

Following the race, Keselowski said, "We kind of stole one today." That's because Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch, who were up front throughout the afternoon, came up second and third as Keselowski drove past them on four fresh tires. Harvick's second-place finish marked his eighth straight dating back to 2014.

One caution for debris late in the race changed the race completely, as Matt Kenseth was running up front late but suffered a broken axle with 14 laps to go. Harvick's pit crew, which had not struggled slightly throughout the day, thrived and sent the No. 4 machine out at the top of the leaderboard.

Jenna Fryer of The Associated Press offered her take on how drastically Kenseth's broken axle changed the outcome of the race:

Just when strategy changed for every driver in the field, another caution flag waved with just two laps remaining. Two green-white-checkered finishes took place and shuffled up the field again, allowing Keselowski to shoot up on the restart on his fresh tires. 

Here is a look at the final leaderboard from Fontana and the Sprint Cup standings. The full results can be found at NASCAR.com.

Pos.	Driver	Points	Wins	Top 5	Top 10
1	Kevin Harvick	225	2	5	5
2	Joey Logano	197	1	2	5
3	Brad Keselowski	163	1	1	4
4	Jimmie Johnson	159	1	2	3
5	Martin Truex Jr.	192	0	1	5
6	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	164	0	3	4
7	Ryan Newman	162	0	3	4
8	Kasey Kahne	159	0	1	2
9	Paul Menard	152	0	1	1
10	Aric Almirola	138	0	0	0
11	AJ Allmendinger	137	0	0	2
12	Casey Mears	132	0	0	1
13	Matt Kenseth	126	0	1	2
14	Denny Hamlin	125	0	2	2
15	David Ragan	124	0	0	0
16	Jamie McMurray	120	0	1	1

Pos.	Driver	Laps Led
1	Brad Keselowski	1
2	Kevin Harvick	34
3	Kurt Busch	65
4	Paul Menard	0
5	Ryan Newman	0
6	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	0
7	Joey Logano	0
8	Martin Truex Jr.	5
9	Jimmie Johnson	0
10	Jeff Gordon	3
11	Aric Almirola	0
12	Justin Allgaier	0
13	Carl Edwards	1
14	Tony Stewart	0
15	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	0
16	Austin Dillon	0
17	Kasey Kahne	0
18	David Ragan	0
19	Danica Patrick	0
20	Chris Buescher	0

Jeff Gordon's final full-time season hasn't gotten off to a great start. Neither did Sunday's race for the No. 24 machine.

On Lap 22 of the Fontana race, Gordon and David Ragan got tangled up and sent the No. 18 car spinning. Gordon didn't suffer any damage, but he spoke about what transpired on the in-car radio, "Let him know it's the bumper. I tried it the easy way. Now it's going to be the hard way for him."

Ragan was quick to offer his take on the incident, via Dustin Long of NBC Sports:

Things would get slightly better for Gordon, who finished 10th on the afternoon. A week after collecting his first top-10 finish of the season at Phoenix, Gordon appears to be getting comfortable again. That's bad news for the rest of the field.

While Gordon's day didn't turn out terrible, matters didn't improve for Ragan following the accident. He would later have a pit-road penalty and fall a lap behind, per Jeff Gluck of USA Today:

Ragan wasn't the only driver to sustain a penalty on pit road Sunday, as Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin were also dealt an uncontrolled tire infraction later in the race. Hamlin's was much more critical on the last caution, as he dropped from third down to 30th on the final restart.

It's a penalty that has been a huge focus recently over the last few weeks with the new technology. Luckily, pit crews have over 20 more races to straighten those issues out before the Chase begins.

The most dominant cars all day long were from SHR and Joe Gibbs Racing, with Harvick, Busch, Kenseth and Hamlin running up near the front most of the day. Normally strong teams like Penske and Hendrick were also competing for the top of the leaderboard, but SHR was nearly untouchable.

At one point, the teams were all somehow paired up all throughout the top eight. SHR's official account poked fun at the cars being part of a buddy system to navigate around the track:

The only issue that could hold up Busch early on in the race was a piece of debris, per SHR:

One team that didn't have a great day was Richard Petty Motorsports. Aric Almirola was relatively competitive, but things did not go so well for Sam Hornish Jr. The No. 9 car finished 43rd overall due to a wreck midway through the race.

Hornish's spotter cleared the No. 9 car to move up, but Trevor Bayne was already there, sending Hornish into the wall and subsequently into the garage. Jay Pennell of Fox Sports noted what transpired on the track:

Hornish's spotter took the blame for the unfortunate accident, per Richard Allen of RacingWithRich.com:

When the NASCAR circuit leaves California, it will head back to the East Coast for the first short-track race. That destination is none other than Martinsville Speedway, one of the toughest paperclips known to man.

Hornish's best finish at the track in a Sprint Cup car is 13th. He may not be able to turn his season around in Virginia, but two huge names seem like favorites for the race. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Busch were winners last season, making next week another huge week for Hendrick and SHR.

Going from one of the longest tracks at two miles to the shortest at 0.526 miles in length, Martinsville will be riveting to watch. The race will be much earlier at 11:30 a.m. ET on Fox Sports 1, but it will be just as enthralling, with every driver bottled up on the short track.

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