Jimmie Johnson Wins Auto Club 500 @ California

Dustin H.Feb 22, 2010

Jimmie Johnson won the Auto Club 500 Sunday at Auto Club Speedway In Fontana, California holding off a hard charging Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton to take the win. Jimmie Johnson picked up his first win in 2002 at California and oddly his forty eighth win came at California in the forty eight car. This was Johnson's fourth win overall at Auto Club Speedway the last three wins came in the fall race. The first caution came out on lap 65 when Martin Truex Jr blew up coming down the back stretch. On lap 93 Kasey Kahne spun coming over turn 4 down thru the grass damaging the splitter and left front he never really recovered after that. During pit stops alot of drivers were caught for speeding Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Juan Pablo Montoya. Jamie McMurray's team had a tire get away and a crew member dodged over the hood of Kevin Harvick they were penalized for that. The race saw its next engine failure on lap 110 when Juan Pablo Montoya had his motor go up in smoke he would be out along with Ryan Newman who suffered a engine failure as well.

Dale Earnhardt Jr had a great run at the Daytona 500 but they trouble in the pits on Sunday he broke a axle. Denny Hamlin also had trouble cutting a tire and Jeff Gordon seemed to be down a cylinder with engine trouble having a good run most of the day. Now with 28 laps to go Brad Keselowski spun bringing out the caution. Johnson was on pit road at the time but that was counted as a green flag stop so he was able to get off pit road before the leader Jeff Burton made it past pit lane to take the lead. Johnson never lost the lead even though Harvick and Burton in the RCR cars were racing hard to catch him at the end. Harvick made contact with the wall with a few laps to go and slowed him up then Johnson went on to the win at Auto Club. Here is top 5 from the Auto Club 500.