From Daytona Disappointment to California Celebration February 21, 2010
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Kevin Harvick (left) and Jimmie Johnson battle for position during the Auto Club 500. Photo courtesy NASCAR.
Do you know how Jimmie Johnson won four consecutive Cup Series championships? Virtually every time his team suffers a setback, they bounce back with a strong finish the next week.
In the season-opening Daytona 500, Johnson and his No. 48 team were involved in a late-race wreck and finished 35th. One week later at the Auto Club 500, he won the race.
But Sunday’s win didn’t come without some good-old-fashioned NASCAR luck. Auto Club Speedway’s wide, 2-mile track leads to long green flag runs and numerous rounds of green-flag pit stops. With 26 laps to go, Johnson pulled down pit road for his final stop. As he passed pit road’s commitment line, Brad Keselowski spun out behind him. The good timing let Johnson pit before the rest of the field and take the lead before the restart. He kept the lead from there, holding off a late charge from Kevin Harvick, who came within a second of Johnson, but scraped the wall with three to go, losing his momentum and his shot at the No. 48.
“Certainly got lucky. We were running third or fourth or fifth at the time, so it’s not like we totally backed into this thing,” Johnson said. “We got a really nice gift with the way things worked out, then it was kind of up to me to hang onto it.”
Johnson, a California native, is no stranger to the Fontana track’s Victory Lane, having won the last three fall races at the track. But in the spring, it’s Jack Roush Fords that have dominated California, winning the previous five events.
Harvick, restarting third, had to pass his teammate Jeff Burton, who restarted second, and the two teammates dueled for a few laps before Harvick later pulled away. The race was a great display for Richard Childress Racing, who, despite growing to a four-car team, struggled last year and failed to put a driver in Victory Lane. The team scaled back to three cars this year because of the lack of sponsorship, but the three remaining teams seem to be starting 2010 off right. In addition to the second and third finishes by Harvick and Burton, fellow teammate Clint Bowyer finished eighth.
“We felt good about what happened in the fall, over the winter. Until you start racing, you don’t know where you are honestly. You feel good about it. I had quite a bit of confidence coming in,” Burton said. “But until everybody gets out here and they’re going to give somebody a trophy, you don’t really know where you stand. I expected to run well.”
Jamie McMurray, the Daytona 500 winner, started on the pole, but wound up with a 17th place finish. A number of teams succumbed to blown engines, including McMurray’s teammate Juan Pablo Montoya and Ryan Newman.
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