NASCAR at Fontana 2015: Winners and Losers from the Auto Club 400
March Madness extended its jurisdiction to NASCAR during the Auto Club 400 at Fontana.
A thrilling finish that saw wild pit strategies and two green-white-checkered finishes ultimately put Brad Keselowski in Victory Lane, the machine Kevin Harvick in second and the resurgent Kurt Busch in third.
Michael Waltrip, an analyst for Fox, said during the broadcast:
"You love the strategy. You saw guys mix it up. You saw Kevin Harvick, his crew chief called for four tires. He saw the jack drop, he left. Brad Keselowski sat there and got four tires, dropped back to 14th on the first green-white-checkered, was in sixth for the final restart and won the race. Good call by [crew chief] Paul Wolfe.
"
And so it was.
Read on for the winners and losers from the West Coast Swing’s final race.
Loser: Uncontrolled Tire Penalties
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Denny Hamlin led the second-most laps on the afternoon with 56 and had little to show for it except a drive-through penalty for an errant tire.
He wasn’t the only one who got dinged for it, but his had the most lasting effect. Toward the front of the pack, a tire man let one bounce out of the pit box. As a result, Hamlin went from contender to goat in one lap.
A similar, though less obvious penalty, happened to Joey Logano. Again, he was close to the front and one of his tire men lost contact with the tire, and he was penalized by driving through.
This isn’t a knock on the rule, just the crews who fail—in the interest of speed—to adhere to the rule. The new technology up in the sky won’t let this fly. Faster isn’t always better if it takes a powerful car—and a week’s worth of prep and practice—and wastes it all for the sake of one-tenth of a second.
The key is in the balance, and the teams that have routinely been in the top 10 have indeed found that balance between speed and safety.
Winner: The Bakersfield Bandit
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Kevin Harvick, a native of Bakersfield, California, couldn’t get past his teammate Kurt Busch in the last 20 laps of the race—not until the last 100 yards, that is.
Harvick didn’t win the race, but he kept his incredible streak of eight straight races with a top-two finish intact with his final pass under the shadow of the flag.
“What a race, just really happy for the fans to see a race like that,” Harvick said on the Fox broadcast. “You just never know how the strategies are going to work out. You’re on both sides of the fence about what to do. You just never know.”
Harvick became the first driver to start a season with five consecutive top-two finishes and proved yet again that his No. 4 team is speed of the week.
Ultimately at Fontana luck came into play. Two late green-white-checkered finishes rendered moot his two-tire pit stop, and that was the difference. A driver with four ran down the leaders with two.
Clearly Harvick is the class of the field week to week, and he heads to the Martinsville paperclip, where he has one win from 27 starts.
Loser: The Replacement
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The No. 18 car had won the previous two renewals of this race. The problem for this team was the actual driver who piloted the car to victory was Kyle Busch, NASCAR’s resident poster child for SAFER barriers.
David Ragan, Busch’s substitute, did his best to live up to his predecessor, but he caused frustration for Jeff Gordon.
Both drivers battled for seventh on Lap 25, and Gordon took umbrage when Ragan surged back, hindering Gordon’s attempt at passing. Gordon got up in Ragan’s left rear quarter panel and spun out the No. 18.
Ragan needn’t worry about causing a lasting impact. The rear bumper of the No. 18 reads, “Get well, Kyle!” Just a friendly reminder that Ragan, though he finished 18th at Fontana, is the understudy.
David Wilson, U.S. president and GM of Toyota Racing Development, told FoxSports.com, “We miss [Busch] greatly, the impact that he has across all of our driver pools. We like to say Kyle is one of the best at throwing a marker out there and letting all of our guys know what the potential is."
Mr. Ragan, don’t slip on the M&M’s on the way out.
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Winner: Kurt Busch
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Kurt Busch’s return to NASCAR after missing the first three races of the season has been a study in talent. Drivers matter.
Regan Smith subbed in for the No. 41 car and finished 16th, 17th and 16th in his three races in Busch’s place. Busch returned at Phoenix with a top-five. He followed that by winning the pole for the final race of the West Coast Swing.
“They are such a strong group and have been together for many, many years and we just need to bridge from where we were last year in those final three races into 2015," Busch said on ESPN.com. "We didn't get the start that we wanted, and here we are now, so let's just stay the course and run our pace."
Busch had one of the fastest cars all day, and with about 60 laps to go, his invincible teammate shot past him on the outside line. Busch would regain the lead, but he got cooked on a restart when the four-tired Brad Keselowski burned him.
"When do you pit to put two tires on?" said Busch on the Fox broadcast. "When do you pit to put four tires on? That last restart I just didn’t get the job done and Brad out-muscled us with four tires."
Still, what Busch has done is nothing short of impressive.
“You can’t replace the skills of an elite athlete,” Darrell Waltrip said during the Fox broadcast.
Busch proved that an elite driver can elevate an average car.
This is great news for the No. 41 car and Stewart-Haas Racing. With the middling Danica Patrick and the flailing Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick and Busch can carry this team for 2015.
Loser: Two-Tire Pit Stops
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Two-tire pit stops echoed a line from the forthcoming Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, “Desperate times, desperate measures." The trailer included just about every imaginable stunt, excluding, of course, a two-tire pit stop.
Martin Truex Jr. and Tony Stewart used them midway through the Auto Club 400 to mixed results.
The top 10 drivers in this race were their own fraternity. In an effort to grab track position, Truex and Stewart took two tires instead of four during a yellow-flag pit stop. The pair restarted first and second and then quickly ceded the lead.
Truex, who has proven to be one of the surprise drivers in 2015, stayed near the top 10 and finished eighth. In some ways, it was a win for him.
Stewart, who is having his worst season to date, fell back and finished 14th. He was never a threat, even on a late restart where he started first by choosing not to pit for new tires.
Truex, for being a one-man team, could—and probably should—qualify for the Chase this year. That alliance with Richard Childress Racing has worked out beautifully so far.
Stewart has shown zero signs of progress this year (though the Auto Club 400 was a step—albeit a small one—in the right direction). He can take solace in the fact that Harvick started this season in historically great form and Busch’s return has been better than expected.
Winner: Race Winner
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Where some drivers got bit by bad luck, Keselowski showered in good luck (and Miller Lite). On the stat sheet it will say that Keselowski led for one lap, but it was more like half of a lap.
On the penultimate green-white-checkered round, crew chief Paul Wolfe called for four tires knowing the leaders would take two. The gamble dropped the No. 2 car to 14th.
By the next caution, Keselowski restarted sixth, powered his way past Harvick and then whipped by Busch. Greg Biffle had crashed way in the back, but NASCAR let it go (credit Biffle for getting off the track), thus letting BK roll to the win.
“I was just looking in front of me,” Keselowski said during the Fox broadcast. “I knew the No. 4 and the No. 41 were the class of the weekend. On speed those cars deserved to win. We stole one today.”
The win secures both Roger Penske cars a spot in the Chase. BK’s teammate, Joey Logano, has been the more steady of the two. Keselowski has been progressing, but he hasn’t shown flashes of the man who won six races last season.
According to the Fox broadcast, Keselowski’s average finish at Auto Club was 23rd. To get this win this early at this track will only bolster his confidence as they head to the 1.5-mile tracks they crave (excluding Martinsville, of course).
“Both Penske cars are in the Chase,” Keselowski said during the Fox broadcast. “I just won at Roger’s [Penske] track. He built Auto Club Speedway. That’s really cool.”
Loser: Broken Axels
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What terrible luck for Matt Kenseth. He had the fuel. He had the tires, then a caution for debris sent the entire field to pit road.
The No. 20 team had been crushing it all afternoon. Then the rear left axle broke and Kenseth went from the most likely winner to 31st. This was a driver who led 43 laps on the day.
As already mentioned, Denny Hamlin had a competitive day and led a bunch of laps, but he faltered late. Carl Edwards had a quiet day for Joe Gibbs Racing, finishing 13th, and Regan Smith took 18th.
Kenseth, for all of his work, hasn’t won since 2013 ,and to see this race slip away from him must have been, to put it mildly, frustrating beyond belief. Kenseth has two wins at Martinsville and will have to put this broken week behind him quickly and get on with this season.
Not only does Kenseth need it, but so too does JGR.
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