Associated Press
The NASCAR notebook …
FONTANA, Calif. ó Kyle Busch added a dominating NASCAR Nationwide Series victory to an overpowering truck win earlier Saturday at Auto Club Speedway.
The 23-year-old speedster, who led 95 of 100 laps in winning the Camping World Truck Series race, was out front for 143 of 150 laps on the 2-mile oval to earn his 22nd Nationwide victory. He became the first driver to win races in two NASCAR national touring series in the same day.
Former series champion Carl Edwards beat Busch out of the pits on the last pit stops by the leaders, but Busch powered back into the lead on the restart 16 laps from the end and pulled away.
“It’s awesome,” Busch said after climbing out of his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. “This is just a blast. It’s pretty special to beat guys like Carl and Kevin (Harvick). To win here twice in one day is even more special.”
Despite building leads of up to 11 seconds at times during the race, it all came down to the restart on lap 135 after Edwards beat Busch out of the pits by the length of the hood on his No. 60 Ford.
On the restart, Busch nudged Edwards and dove under him as Harvick, in third, made it three-wide for several seconds before Edwards slipped all the way to fifth. Busch easily led the rest of the way, beating Harvick to the finish line by 1.011 seconds ó most of the front straightaway and almost the same margin he had in beating Todd Bodine in the truck race.
Busch’s JGR teammate Joey Logano held off a determined bid by Edwards to finish third in the Nationwide event.
“You know, it’s just racing,” Edwards said of the winning pass. “I couldn’t see behind me, but it felt like we were just racing real hard. I think I might have got touched, but he was going for the win and that’s what the fans pay for.
“Man, Kyle was just in a league of his own tonight, so it was tough to be able to hang with him for most of the night.”
The victory came in the first race back for crew chief Jason Ratliff, suspended along with fellow crew chief Dave Rogers for the second half of last season after the Gibbs team was caught trying to manipulate the results of an engine dynomometer test at Michigan International Speedway.
“I’ve been dreaming about this,” Ratliff said. “It’s a heck of a way to come back.”
WHOLE NEW WORLDFONTANA, Calif. ó Daytona is over. Let the real season begin.
That’s been the prevailing theme this week as the NASCAR Sprint Cup series moves to Southern California for today’s Auto Club 500.
“I think the only thing you can take out of Daytona is momentum and points,” three-time Auto Club Speedway winner Jeff Gordon said.
The season-opening Daytona 500 is NASCAR’s Super Bowl. But it’s also one of only four Cup races run each season with restricted engines. The combination of less horsepower and the big tracks at Daytona and Talladega makes the events unique.
Cup teams prepare the entire winter for Daytona, building special cars with special engines.
Then, suddenly, it’s on to a whole new world ó the 2-mile oval at Auto Club Speedway and the 1.5-mile tracks at Las Vegas and Atlanta the next two weeks. Those tracks are the models for most of the venues on the 36-race Cup schedule, so Sunday’s race should begin to answer some questions.
“This is the first time all year that we get to go out and run and we’re not depending on everybody else around us,” two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart explained. “I do feel like this is really the first true test of where everybody is at, and a truer read to the season than just Daytona.”