Tony Stewart had a fast car today and it proved to be enough to win the Auto Club 400 in Fontana California. In a race that was caution free until the rains came out on lap 124 Tony Stewart’s Mobil 1/ Office Depot Chevrolet was the best car of the day.
Early on in the race it was the Kyle Busch show as he lead for 3/4ths of the race until Tony took over the lead around lap 80 or so. The #18 rubbed the wall slightly and Kyle Busch lost handling on the car a little bit. Kyle Busch finished 2nd, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards completing the top five.
Denny Hamlin who was in second place at the time of caution decided to pit along with Jimmie Johnson and finished 10th and 11th. Many question why he would pit knowing the rain was coming but if they had gone back green they would have been in good shape. The red flag was great for Jimmie Johnson and the 48 Lowes team as they had an oil leak and major engine problems which would have cost them many laps had the race continued on.
Post Race Quotes:
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.: We had a really good car. The car was really quick in practice at the end of the day yesterday. We carried the same car into the race. I was real happy about that. We started off moving forward. Had some really good pit strategies, pitting a little bit earlier than most guys. Steve brought us down pit road and we gained a little bit of time, passed some guys on pit road.
We drove the car up to fifth before the weather came. We had been watching the weather all day. We felt certain if it started to rain it wasn’t going to stop. We made the right choice by staying out and building ourselves into the top three.
Pretty happy. Pretty uneventful weekend. Other than the qualifying miscue we had, we’ve had a really good weekend.
KYLE BUSCH: We had a great race car there from the beginning of the race. Got the lead from Denny after the first lap, led a lot of laps. I just wish we led 30 more and we’d be in a different position right now.
Had a great car. The Interstate Batteries Camry was fast. Can’t say enough about those guys, Dave and everybody, for putting together a really good car this weekend. Wish we would have been able to race the whole thing on one hand, but on the other hand I’m kind of glad we’re not because we kind of have a little bit of damage that slowed us down there about 20 laps ago.
All in all it was a really good day. Glad we were able to run that way and up front like we’re supposed to and to our potential, that we had a day where we didn’t have attrition or something else get in our way.
Tony’ claimed his second victory of the season, his second at Fontana and the 46th of his career, tying him with Buck Baker for 14th on the career victory list.
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