NASCAR: Kevin Harvick Arrives Late to Win Auto Club 400

Racin’ with Russ - Kevin Harvick managed to get to the front only once on Sunday, but it was on the most important lap of the day, the last, to take his first NASCAR Sprint Cup win of the year.

Kyle Busch led 151 laps of the Auto Club 400 in California and by all appearances looked like he was about to sweep yet another weekend of NASCAR racing. That is, until a very late race restart bunched up the field which allowed Jimmie Johnson and Harvick to whisk on by the Toyota of Busch. With Johnson out front, Harvick snugged up his front bumper to Johnson’s through the final turn, which was enough to upset the car or Jimmie to have Harvick zip on by for the narrow win, his first since last year.

Busch, Matt Kenseth and Ryan Newman wrapped up the top five finishers.

The overall race was a snoozer with very little action as the field watched Kyle Busch run away with the lead after each restart.

Notes: Kyle Busch’s teammate Denny Hamlin led briefly but succumbed mid-race to an engine failure.

--- Kurt Busch and Jeff Gordon struggled with ill-handling cars, finishing 17^th and 18^th respectively.

--- Carl Edwards finished sixth, but leaves California with a nine point lead over Newman in the big picture.

Nationwide - Despite the faster cars of Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch’s crew chief rolled the dice to take two tires on the final pit stop within a dozen laps remaining and went on to claim his third Fontana win in a row.

Edwards and Harvick led most of the laps and appeared poised to duke it out for the top spot, until Busch’s two-tire plan derailed their plans. The two drivers made up around eight seconds during the closing laps and came with one second of Busch’s back bumper. They even watched Busch bounce off the wall within sight of the checkers, but they came up short to see Busch claim his 46^th Nationwide win.

Wrapping up the top five included Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and Elliott Sadler.

Stenhouse Jr. now leads the points by six over Jason Leffler.

Open Wheel News - Sebastian Vettel took game, set and match in winning the pole and opening round of Formula One competition in Australia. The Red Bull driver had an easy time edging Lewis Hamilton and Russian shoe Vitaly Petrov.

--- Closer to home in Florida, the Indy Car racing series opened their season on the street of St. Petersburg. What often looked like an open wheel demo derby ended with Dario Franchitti in victory lane. Will Power, Tony Kanaan, Simona de Silvestro and Takuma Sato made up the rest of the top five.

De Silvestro gave Kanaan all he could handle and then some over the final half dozen laps, with Kanaan having to block several times to hold off the charging Swiss Miss. Danica Patrick was involved in two minor incidents requiring a change of bodywork, finishing 12^th on the day.

From the very first turn to late in the show, there were incidents and accidents, mostly due to overzealous drivers experiencing the new two-abreast restarts.

From Rumorville - Look for Richard Childress’s grandson and Camping World Truck driver Austin Dillon to enter his first Sprint Cup race later this season. No specific date at this time.

--- When the Sprint Cup teams race at the upcoming Talladega venue, NASCAR has announced the restrictor plate will be 1/32” smaller in order to slow the cars down just a little bit.

--- A sad note in the world of racing publications as long time periodical National Speed Sport News printed their last copy this past week after reporting news from the racing world for the past 76 years. The online abbreviated version will continue, but the hard copy version is now gone forever. It was a great run.

That’s it for this week. Next week’s RWR will review the short track action from the tight Martinsville track for the Cup and trucks along with more racing news from around the globe.