FONTANA, California — Jimmie Johnson became the first two-time winner of the 2016 Sprint Cup Series season Sunday, earning a victory in the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway.
With his 77th career win, Johnson moved past Dale Earnhardt for seventh on the all-time list.
Kevin Harvick finished second for the eighth time in Johnson’s last 11 wins. Denny Hamlin overcame an early-race unscheduled pit stop, radio issues and a pit-road speeding penalty to finish third.
Johnson led a total of 25 laps throughout the race. He took the lead for the final time on a restart that followed a caution that sent the race into overtime. Johnson restarted third and pushed Harvick to the lead while taking second for himself. After Harvick and Johnson moved out to the front, Johnson then passed Harvick for the lead and then the win.
Harvick dominated throughout most the day, leading a total of 142 laps. Holding off charges from Carl Edwards and Martin Truex Jr., Harvick led much of the first half of the race. He got slightly off pit sequence when he gave up the lead to pit because of a vibration on lap 106.
Johnson and Truex both led laps before Harvick retook the lead with 64 laps remaining.
Then Johnson and Edwards both pitted under green just before a yellow flag for debris with 45 laps to go. After everyone else stopped under caution, they restarted on the front row.
Meanwhile, Harvick restarted sixth on tires just a few laps newer. He got up to fourth on the restart and retook the lead with 34 laps to go.
Tires were an issue for several drivers throughout the race. The most dramatic tire-related problem came on lap 48 when Larson slammed head-on into an inside retaining wall. He was not injured.
While most of the six cautions were tire-related, at least one was not. Danica Patrick spun and hit the wall after contact with Kasey Kahne with 80 laps remaining. Kahne’s spotter and crew chief were called to the NASCAR trailer after the race as a result.
Joey Logano and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. rounded out the top five. Chase Elliott, Edwards, AJ Allmendinger, Brad Keselowski and Jamie McMurray finished sixth through 10th, respectively.
NOTES: Brad Keselowski won the 2015 Auto Club 400. … Kyle Busch won at Auto Club Speedway in 2013 and 2014 before missing last year’s race. … Jimmie Johnson is the winningest driver at ACS with five. … Pole sitter Austin Dillon won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at ACS on Saturday, but he came in 24th place Sunday. Kyle Busch dominated much of the Xfinity race, leading 133 of 150 laps before finishing second. … Although Dillon won the pole starting spot on Friday, Denny Hamlin set a track record with a 188.511 mph lap in the second of three rounds of qualifying.
Dillon captures Xfinity race
FONTANA, Calif. — Seconds after crossing the finish line .715 seconds ahead of runner-up Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon summed up Saturday’s TreatMyClot.com 300 by Janssen in one short sentence.
“I’d rather be lucky than good,” Dillon chortled on his team radio after ending evading Busch’s last-ditch attempt to pinch the winning No. 2 Chevrolet into the outside wall at Auto Club Speedway.
And that was just the final stanza of a crazy final lap that saw: 1) Busch slow to a crawl, short on fuel; 2) Daniel Suarez take the lead from his Joe Gibbs racing teammate on the backstretch, only to run out of fuel; 3) Busch regain the lead despite cutting a left front tire on his final lap; and 4) Dillon come from a half-lap down to pass Busch as the drivers approached the finish line.
Dillon led only one lap, but it was the lap that counted.
Busch, on the other hand, led 133 of the 150 laps and appeared destined to tie Sam Ard’s record of four victories in a row.
In fact, Joe Gibbs Racing seemed headed for its third straight 1-2-3 finish before Erik Jones ran out of fuel on the next-to-last lap, Daniel Suarez emptied his tank a lap later, and Busch cut his tire after taking the white flag.
The victory was Dillon’s first of the season, first at the two-mile track and seventh of his career.
Darrell Wallace Jr. finished third, and Suarez limped across the finish line in fourth place, maintaining a 10-point lead over fifth-place finisher Elliott Sadler in the series standings.