Both Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch won their first NASCAR Cup Series races on the two-mile oval at Fontana, CA. The track that Roger Penske built on the site of a Kaiser steel mill has been in operation since 1997, but Sunday’s Pala Casino 400 Cup Series race – the second points-paying event of the 2023 season – is its final in its current guise.
Parts of this huge facility have been sold and, with those proceedings and other funding available, Auto Club Speedway will become a half-mile short oval over the next year or so. It will conduct NASCAR races once completed and be used for other non-racing activities: concerts, likely swap meets, meeting places and who knows what else?
The vast majority of Cup Series drivers aren’t terribly excited about the change, as most of them enjoy racing on the wide, banked oval. They like the fact that the surface is old, wide and has seams that must be respected in order to make it around the oval in one piece. It’s a driver’s race track and not one that was constructed to make dollar pinchers happy.
This weekend’s race, the Pala Casino 400, was a one-day affair. There was no practice, no qualifying and the track was as green as could be, after cold, snow and rain storms on Saturday stopped both the Cup Series and Xfinity Series from turning a single lap. The latter race had to be postponed until after Sunday’s feature and the hardy fans – including a fully-packed infield of campers – stuck around into the evening to watch.
As explained above, this is where seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champ Jimmie Johnson won his first race in NASCAR’s premier series; he’s chalked up a total of seven victories on his hometown circuit. Johnson isn’t racing full-time any longer; he’s taken on driver/owner duties with Legacy Motorsports and will only race a few times this year. Fontana wasn’t on his schedule.
Las Vegas native Kyle Busch had four victories – including his maiden – on this two-mile oval coming into Sunday’s track finale. Now he has five wins on this track, after biding his time behind prominent lap leader Ross Chastain’s No. 1 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 into the final stage. Busch, who left Toyota stalwarts Joe Gibbs Racing and the No. 18 he’d driven throughout his 15-year career at the close of the 2022 campaign, joined Chevrolet’s Richard Childress Racing at the start of this year to race the No. 8 vacated by Tyler Reddick, led only led three times, all of them in the final stage. This was his third race with that legendary squad. Busch’s margin of victory was a gaping 2.998 seconds.
Busch commanded the point from the 180th lap through to the final tour in his Lucas Oil Chevy Camaro. This race ended under green conditions, with Chase Elliott second in his Hendrick Motorsports NAPA Auto Parts Chevy, lagging by a gaping 2.998 seconds. Chastain in the Kubota Chevy took third after winning the first two stages, Daniel Suarez finished fourth in his Freeway Insurance Chevy and the soon-to-retire Kevin Harvick took fifth in the first Ford entry from Stewart Haas Racing. Twenty cars were on the lead lap at the close and 29 cars, of the 36 starters, were running at the close, with Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Chevy the last car to see the checkered flags.
There were eight caution periods for a total of 38 laps. When we say that cautions breed cautions, that was the case with this race’s “big one” which occurred after a short, fifth yellow for Corey LaJoie’s spin in the fourth turn. As the field was getting back into play after the green flew, Ryan Preece’s No. 41Ford, the No. 20 Toyota of Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 Ford, the No. 10 Ford of Aric Almirola, Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota, Cody Ware in the No. 51 Ford, Ty Dillon’s No. 77 Chevy, Justin Haley’s No. 31 Chevy and the No. 38 Ford of Todd Gilliland got into one another on the front straight. Dillon, Bell, Preece, Reddick and Almirola failed to finish of that group and the clean-up lasted all of four laps.
While precipitation stayed away during this afternoon race, it was cold for California and windy. The snow line was perilously close to the track and it might have made tire supplier Goodyear wonder if the new, harder left tires they’d brought for the Pala Casino race was the right choice. It sure looked that way after all was said and done; drivers were able to get heat into the rubber and there was plenty of passing in the turns and on the straights. The 28 lead changes among 13 drivers attest to that.
Despite the chill, fans packed the stands and Auto Club Speedway announced, early in the day that this event was sold out. At the close, they either cheered or jeered Busch, who earned his 61st win in 644 career Cup Series starts. With the nickname Rowdy and his propensity to never hold back, you either love Kyle Busch or detest him. No matter how one feels about this driver, though, he’s a winner in Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series contests and he’s willing to drive anything.
The victory on Sunday was a high mark in the driver’s illustrious career, coming as he was pretty much discarded by Gibbs’ team and scooped up by Childress. In only his second points-paying race for the team from Welcome, N.C., Busch’s appearance in victory lane bolstered their championship hopes. “The guys did a great job,” Busch acknowledged afterwards. “Randall (Burnett, crew chief), everybody that has worked so hard during the of-season, this is for them. We’ve done a lot of sim stuff, we’ve done a lot of testing in general, just with trying to get up to speed, systems and all that sort of stuff. But man, there’s nothing more rewarding than being able to go to Victory Lane.
“This win ranks high just because it ranks to the fact of ‘I can do it.’ I never doubted myself, but sometimes you do,” Busch said. “You kind of get down on it, you wonder what’s going on and what’s happening and you put yourself in a different situation and you’re able to come out here and reward your guys. It’s not about me always winning, but it’s about the guys. I’ve been with a lot of great people that have given me a lot of great opportunities in my career, so it’s awesome to be able to reward them. I’m going to enjoy it for sure, and hopefully, there’s many more left to go!”
Busch will get another opportunity – this time in Las Vegas this Sunday – at his true hometown race. The Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube takes place Sunday, March 5 at 3:30PM ET. Live coverage is on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR radio channel 90.
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