Second day goes faster for Edwards
FONTANA, Calif. -- Carl Edwards won what easily could have been called the 24 Hours of Fontana instead of the Auto Club 500.
Edwards passed Jimmie Johnson with 13 laps remaining Monday to win the second race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season under sunny skies, a day after rain and track problems forced an overnight postponement of the race.
Day 2 was not delayed by stoppages or a major crash -- unlike Sunday's most memorable events -- and a checkered flag finally waved about 24 hours after the race originally was to begin.
The race finished under a last-lap caution, but Edwards was the class of the field, leading Johnson by more than three seconds when the lap began.
"The reason we won this race is because of preparation," Edwards said of his Roush Fenway Racing team, headed by crew chief Bob Osborne.
Edwards said that his No. 99 Ford was not as strong during the late stages of Sunday's 87 completed laps, when the temperature was about 50 degrees. But with conditions about 20 degrees warmer Monday, his car was perfectly primed to compete.
"This is what we prepare for," he said. "The tougher it gets, the more competitive it is. If we had a 55-hour red flag (condition), we're still going to go out there and race as hard as possible."
After the subsequent Nationwide Series race, the teams headed to Las Vegas for Sunday's UAW-Dodge 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Sunday night's final red-flag stoppage lasted about five hours before NASCAR officials gave up on track-drying efforts at almost 11 p.m.
Racing restarted at 10 a.m. Monday, and a sparse crowd estimated at 20,000 showed up at Auto Club Speedway for the Cup and Nationwide races. The latter had been rained out Saturday and again Sunday.
Johnson, the two-time reigning Cup champion, finished second in the 250-lap race, while teammate Jeff Gordon was third.
"I'm excited to take what we learned today, actually the last four or five days we've been here -- it seems like a month -- to Vegas and improve on it," Johnson said.
Las Vegas native Kyle Busch was fourth in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota.
"That was fun. We'll take a fourth-place finish and a good championship points day when we don't have the car to win," Busch said. "Overall, a good day. When you don't have a winning car, all you can ask for is a top-five. So it's cool."
Busch, 22, matched his fourth-place finish the previous week in the Daytona 500 and will arrive in his hometown as the early season Sprint Cup points leader.
"The ultimate goal is to be in first place in points all year," he said.
Busch is also racing part-time in the Craftsman Truck Series and holds the points lead after winning Saturday's race in Southern California.
The Durango High School graduate finished second to Tony Stewart in the Nationwide race, matching their finish from the series' opening race at Daytona last week.
Busch briefly led the Sprint Cup resumption from laps 137 through 150, but Edwards and Johnson dominated the day. Edwards led a race-leading 63 laps and Johnson 60.
Johnson was running first after the final pit stop with 26 laps left. Edwards, who restarted third, got around Gordon and then Johnson to lead the last 13 laps and post his eighth Cup victory.
"It looked like Jimmie was the guy to beat at the end," Edwards said. "It was fun racing with him."
Gordon, who led 46 of Sunday's 87 laps, was in front for only 11 Monday.
"We struggled with grip, and had some great pit stops," Gordon said. "Nobody was going to beat (Edwards') car. Carl Edwards was in another league. We've got some work to do to catch those guys."
The last-lap white flag was waved before the last of 12 caution flags was displayed. That delighted Gordon because his engine blew halfway through the final lap, but the racing order was frozen to assure he finished in third place.
Contact reporter Jeff Wolf at jwolf@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0247.
STEWART MAKES IT 2-FOR-2 IN NATIONWIDE
FONTANA, Calif. -- Tony Stewart was dominant Monday in winning his second straight NASCAR Nationwide Series race, holding off hard-charging Kyle Busch again.
Stewart beat Busch, his teammate in the Sprint Cup series, in a 1-2 Toyota sweep in the Nationwide season opener at Daytona. He made it look a lot easier in the rain-postponed race at Auto Club Speedway, leading 136 of 150 laps on the two-mile track formerly known as California Speedway.
It is the fourth victory for two-time Cup champion Stewart in what was previously known as the Busch Series, but his first win at any track besides Daytona International Speedway.
"The car was awesome. I've got to hand it to my crew chief, Dave Rogers, and his guys," Stewart said. "They made this car real, real good and there were a lot of cars out there that weren't real good.
"We could stay out front and those other guys would wear their tires out and wear themselves out and we could just take care of our tires and do what we needed to do."
Both the leaders were close to running out of gas at the end, but they made it as Stewart crossed the finish line 2.408 seconds -- about half the final straightaway -- ahead of Busch.
Former series champion Kevin Harvick finished third, followed by David Reutimann and Carl Edwards, the defending series champion and the winner of Monday's Cup race.
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