Kyle Busch escapes tire issues, wins Auto Club 400 in overtime

FONTANA, Calif.— In a race that saw tire problems turn the contest upside-down, Kyle Busch won Sunday’s Auto Club 400 in a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the fifth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event of the year six laps past its scheduled distance.

The first driver on four fresh tires for a restart on Lap 205 at Auto Club Speedway, Busch passed Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart on the next-to-last lap, bringing rookie Kyle Larson with him.

Able to keep Larson behind him on the final lap, Busch crossed the finish line .214 seconds ahead of the 21-year-old, who had won the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at the two-mile track one day earlier.

The victory was Busch’s second straight and third overall at Fontana, his first of the season and the 29th of his career. Kurt Busch, who like Stewart took right-side tires only on the final pit stop on Lap 200, ran third, followed by polesitter Matt Kenseth and Stewart.

Jamie McMurray, Brian Vickers, AJ Allmendinger, Paul Menard and Carl Edwards completed the top 10.

“I knew four tires was going to win the race, so I’m glad (crew chief) Dave (Rogers) called that,” Busch said in Victory Lane. “There was some great racing up front between Tony and Kurt there. It was really interesting to watch that.

“I went into Turn 1 thinking I’m going to run the middle and then Tony started sliding off the bottom and I’m like, ‘Nope, not having it.’ I had to get some brake and cut my car to the left and drove underneath him and got him cleared off Turn 2, and I was able to keep Kyle Larson behind me.”

Though he ran second, Larson nevertheless earned Busch’s admiration in the process.

“Man, what a shoe that boy is,” Busch said. “If he would have gotten alongside of me, it would have been a whale of a race. I drove off into Turn 3, but I heard ‘Car inside’ on my left.

“If he drove it in further than I did, Jesus must have told him to stop… What an awesome race this track produced!”

Larson was surprised he was able to reach second place after restarting ninth in the bottom lane for the green-white-checker.

“I was thinking I was going to line up eighth,” Larson said, “but then the 40 (Landon Cassill) stayed out, and I had to line up on the bottom, and I was disappointed because the bottom had been getting jammed up once we got to Turn 1. I was surprised--I just watched it on TV and it was pretty wild--we were four wide there into (Turn) 1.

“Came out in fourth there, I think, and then got to second off Turn 2 the next lap and thought I might have a shot at Kyle, depending on where he'd go into Turn 3. But he was good enough to keep it on the bottom and stay ahead of me. But we'll take second. Long race and definitely didn't expect to run second, so I'll take it and head back to North Carolina with a smile on my face.”

Until the final five laps, the race had all the makings of a routine victory by Jimmie Johnson, who had a commanding lead over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon as the event approached the regulation distance of 400 miles.

But Johnson, who led 104 laps, blew a left front tire and drove his car to pit road, handing Gordon the lead. No caution.

Brad Keselowski suffered his third left rear tire failure a lap later but stayed out of harm’s way. No caution. The same fate befell Marcos Ambrose on the same lap. No caution.

Finally, when Clint Bowyer’s Toyota spun on lap 198, thanks to a flat left rear tire, NASCAR called the caution that set up the two-lap dash to the finish.

The tire issues that surfaced during Saturday’s practice sessions—particularly in the left rear position—plagued drivers throughout the race, not just at the finish. Kevin Harvick caused the first caution on Lap 18 when his left rear tire blew.

Harvick charged through the field and was running third on Lap 138 when another blown left rear forced him to pit road. With tire debris strewn across the backstretch, NASCAR called a caution on Lap 141, with Johnson in the lead.

Keselowski, who suffered two flat left rears during Saturday’s practice, had two more during the race but both yellow flags rescued him in both cases. Twice Keselowski brought the No. 2 Ford to pit road under caution with the tire soft, escaping a failure at speed that could have damaged the car.

But the third failure, in the closing laps, dropped the 2012 series champion to 26th at the finish.

The race winner, though, had no tire problems and suggested that other teams might have been overly aggressive in lowering tire pressures.

Notes: Gordon was shuffled back on the final restart and finished 13th… Johnson came home 24th, the last driver on the lead lap… Menard, who skipped Friday’s qualifying to be with his wife after the birth of their daughter, posted his ninth-place finish after starting from the rear of the field because of the driver change. Matt Crafton had qualified the car… Sam Hornish Jr. ran 17th in Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota, after Hamlin left the track for a local hospital before the race to treat a sinus infection that impaired his vision. Hornish had been at the track on standby for Matt Kenseth, whose wife Katie is expecting the couple’s third daughter. ( Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service)