FONTANA, Calif. –  Carl Edwards might adopt the old Mama’s and Papa’s song, “Monday, Monday… so good to me!”

He won Monday’s postponed NASCAR Sprint Cup race after two days of trying at the Auto Club Speedway of Southern California.

Edwards took the lead for the final time with 14 laps to go and drove away from runner-up Jimmie Johnson and third-place finisher Jeff Gordon.

The 500-mile race over the rain-swept, two-mile track tried the patience of NASCAR’s finest drivers and teams. They started the event Sunday afternoon and didn’t finish until Monday afternoon. Mother Nature, indeed, threw unpredictable knuckleballs at the teams throughout the weekend.

One of numerous storms forced a halt to the event after 87 laps Saturday night and all attempts to dry the track failed, forcing officials to postpone the conclusion until Monday.

Sunshine finally broke through and Edwards wound up at the end of a rainbow in victory lane.

He raced with the leaders throughout the race and chased Johnson down after a caution flag with 19 laps remaining bunched the field.

The 11th caution of the day was caused by Jeremy Mayfield, and both Johnson and Gordon beat Edwards out of the pits after changing four tires. The Missouri native ran high, wide and handsome through the turns over the final laps, reeling in Johnson. NASCAR’s defending champion actually wore out his right rear tire trying to stay ahead.

Finishing fourth behind Edwards, Johnson and Gordon was young Kyle Busch, who won the Craftsman Truck race Friday night, and was a factor in Monday’s race. Matt Kenseth finished fifth, trailed by Martin Truex, Jr., Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne and Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman. 

Rain created problems throughout the weekend with NASCAR’s Nationwide Series event postponed from Saturday until after the Sprint Cup race Monday.

The delayed start was further delayed once they cranked  the cars after Michael Waltrip’s machine spewed oil on the track, forcing cleanup crews back on the track again.

Gordon jumped out front at the start and sped away to a three-second lead. Denny Hamlin spun and smacked the retaining wall to bring out the afternoon’s first caution period.

On the restart, Johnson was out front briefly before Gordon took over again. 

Just one lap later, a multi-car crash knocked several contenders out of the race. Casey Mears lost control of his Chevy between turns three and four and slid across in front of teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr., knocking Earnhardt into the outside wall. Sam Hornish, Jr., plowed into Mears’ car, turning it on its side. Reed Sorensen was also involved.

Quick work by the Speedway safety crew doused a flash fire on Mears’ car. None of the drivers were injured.

NASCAR stopped the race (red flag) to clean up the track. After an hour delay to repair seeping  problems on the track, the race was restarted with Gordon still in the lead. Only 24 laps had been completed.

On the restart, it was Gordon, Johnson, Stewart, Kahne, Biffle, Edwards, Burton, Montoya, Ragan and Newman.

Johnson passed Gordon on lap 34 for the lead. Gordon took it back just a few laps later.

Another caution slowed the field at lap 43. On this restart, Gordon shot to the front like a rocket. Edwards moved past Johnson for second. 

Joe Nemechek had a flat tire and spun just two laps after the restart, bringing out the fifth caution flag.

Robby Gordon spun a few laps later to bring out the sixth caution period. Elliott Sadler spun to avoid Gordon and hit the outside wall.

Biffle held the lead on the restart with Johnson in tow. Gordon was third and Kyle Busch fourth. 
       
A seventh caution slowed the field at 83 laps when raindrops pelted the cars. NASCAR put the red flag out for the second time when the track became totally wet at 87 laps. A wet track delayed the continuation of the race until Monday.

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By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

FONTANA, Calif. — Déjà vu.

For the second straight Nationwide Series race, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch drove their Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas to a 1-2 finish.

Unlike the Feb. 16 Camping World 300 at Daytona, where Stewart edged Busch by .259 seconds, the twice rain-delayed Stater Bros. 300 Monday at Auto Club Speedway was a landslide in Stewart’s favor.

The driver of the No. 20 Camry won the race by 2.408 seconds after Busch wrested the second position from David Reutimann in a battle that lasted 30 laps. In the closing circuits, Kevin Harvick slipped past Reutimann for third place, with Reutimann maintaining fourth and Carl Edwards fifth.

All told, Stewart paced the field for 136 of the 150 laps at the 2.0-mile speedway. In fact, the only laps Stewart didn’t lead came when Morgan Shepherd stayed on the track and led Lap 24 during a round of pit
stops and when Stewart pitted from the lead on Lap 98, and the field cycle through a round of green-flag stops.

Stewart took the lead for good after a restart on Lap 111, passing Jamie McMurray moments after the cars crossed the start/finish line. From that point on, the battle was for second place.

“This car was really good in the little practice we got Saturday morning,” Stewart said, referring to the intermittent rains that abbreviated practice schedules in all three of NASCAR’s top series. “To lead 130-some laps of a 150-lap race is pretty impressive.

“We got lucky there at Daytona, but this is just one of those days that you can count on your fingers and toes — having a car this good all day.”

Busch could take solace in his runner-up finish after a long weekend that saw him win Saturday’s San Bernardino 200 Craftsman Truck Series race and leave the track with the points lead in the truck and Sprint
Cup Series (after finishing fourth in the Auto Club 500).

“Tony was pretty much in a league of his own, for some reason,” Busch said. “I got two second places to the guy who won the first two races, so what else can you do? I’m happy with it. We’ll go on to Las Vegas
(for Saturday’s Sam’s Town 300), and, hopefully, I can have another good run.”

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By Reid Spencer, Sporting News Wire Service
February 23, 2008
11:04 PM EST

FONTANA, Calif. — For the second consecutive day, rain played havoc with the racing schedule at Auto Club Speedway, forcing postponement of Saturday’s Stater Bros. 300 Nationwide Series race and shortening Sprint Cup practice to 34 minutes.

The Nationwide race has been rescheduled for Sunday, to be run after the conclusion of the Auto Club 500 Sprint Cup race, which has a scheduled start time of 4 p.m. ET.

Jeff Burton will start the Stater Bros. 300 from the pole because the No. 29 Chevrolet he drives won the owners’ championship for Richard Childress Racing last season, with Burton and Scott Wimmer splitting seat time in the car.

Drivers in the Cup series will start Sunday’s Auto Club 500 with the benefit only of the one rain-shortened practice session. All on-track activity, including qualifying for the Cup race and the Craftsman Truck Series San Bernardino 200, were washed out by rain on Friday.

Kyle Busch, who won the Truck Series race before the rain began to fall Saturday afternoon, says he could have used more practice time in preparation for Sunday’s Cup race.

“Our car wasn’t as good as I would have wanted it to be,” he said after the rain-shortened practice. “But it’s a long 500-mile race, and we’ve just got to keep on top of it and make changes as we need to and try to make this thing better all day long — and not get too frustrated with it and come up through the field.”

Hoping to become the first driver to win a race in each of NASCAR’s top three series on the same weekend, Busch will start 22nd in the Auto Club 500, having inherited the owner points earned by J.J. Yeley in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 18 car last year. Busch signed with Gibbs for the 2008 season after driving for Hendrick Motorsports in 2007.

Last November, Busch won the Craftsman Truck and Nationwide Series events at Phoenix before finishing eighth in the Cup race on the same weekend. Last July at Daytona International Speedway, he won the Nationwide race and finished second by .005 seconds to Jamie McMurray in the Pepsi 400 when rain forced both races to be run on the same day.

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California CTS Results

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

FONTANA, Calif. (February 23, 2008) — Kyle Busch has come of age — literally.

At age 16, Busch was kicked out of Auto Club Speedway and banned from the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race there because the weekend also featured a CART event sponsored by cigarette maker Marlboro and federal law precluded persons under age 18 from participating in events sponsored by tobacco companies.

On Saturday, Busch returned to the two-mile track as a 22-year-old veteran and pulled away from Todd Bodine in the final 10 laps of the San Bernardino County 200 to claim his seventh win in the truck series and his first in a Toyota. Busch led 51 laps in opening a 20-point lead over Bodine, who won the season opener last week at Daytona International Speedway but entered the race tied in the points standings with Busch and Johnny Benson because of a 25-point penalty incurred for a bed panel height infraction at Daytona.

“This means the most to me than anything,” said Busch, who finished 1.415 seconds ahead of Bodine. “In this race in 2001, I was kicked out of the racetrack. I probably could have sat on the pole and won the race that day.”

hnny Benson ran third in Saturday’s race, the first leg of an unprecedented CTS/Nationwide Series doubleheader. Terry Cook was fourth,followed by 2007 series champion Ron Hornaday Jr., Ted Musgrave, Travis Kvapil, Mike Skinner, Colin Braun and Phillip McGilton.

Bodine held the lead from lap 58 to lap 75, before a cloud cover caused his No. 30 Toyota to tighten up. Busch reassumed the point on lap 76 and led the final 11 laps of the 100-lap event after the field completed a cycle of green-flag pit stops “That’s exactly what happened,” Bodine said of the cloud that changed the handling on his truck. “I told (crew chief) Mike (Hillman Sr.) that the clouds came over and gave him (Busch) a little more grip.”

Bodine’s crew put on scuffed tires during his last pit stop, but that left truck with a loose condition that prevented him from overtaking Busch, Bodine said.

Skinner and Hornaday, the two dominant CTS drivers in 2007, both recovered from early difficulty. Skinner’s engine had a miss from the outset, but his team discovered a loose sparkplug wire on a Lap 6 pit stop and corrected the problem. A slow pit stop on lap 15 dropped Hornaday from the top 10, but by the time the field restarted on lap 49 after a caution for debris in Turn 3, Hornaday was running fourth. Another slow stop on his final trip to the pits, however, dropped Hornaday to fifth at the finish.

Notes: After struggling early, Jon Wood had worked his way back into the top 10 before breaking a rear-end gear during his lap 46 pit stop. He finished 32nd. . . Six weeks after Busch was kicked out of Auto Club Speedway in 2001, NASCAR imposed an age limit of 18 in all three of its top series, rendering Busch ineligible to compete in the 2002 season.

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