Qualifying
Kurt Busch scored his first pole since 2004 with a strong run for his new Miller Lite #2 Penske team. Greg Biffle won the Busch Series race on Saturday and qualified on the outside of the front row. Jimmie Johnson came off his Daytona 500 win with a third place qualifying effort.
Joe Gibbs Racing rookie teammates J.J. Yeley and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five.
Drop The Green Flag
Cars fanned out three and four wide when the green flag flew as drivers took advantage of the smooth, wide surface. Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle got out to a bit of a lead early on as Kurt lead the first seven laps before Biffle took control. Tony Stewart also showed some strength early as he took the lead on lap 60.
The drivers settled into a single-file line and just put laps on the board towards the long 500 mile race. Greg Biffle dominated the first half, passing Stewart back and clinching the bonus points for leading the most laps shortly after the halfway point.
Storylines
Penske driver Ryan Newman chose to go back to the Dodge Intrepid instead of racing the current 2006 Dodge Charger. NASCAR allows drivers to use any car legal car from the current season, or the two previous seasons so this is legal even though it is a bit unusual. Team Penske felt that the old Intrepid had a better aero-balance than the Charger so they used the old body style.
This really puts pressure on Dodge to fix their body since it makes them look bad. Manufacturers spend a lot of time and money in promoting their NASCAR programs. To have a team going back to the old body style doesn't look good for Dodge.
Chasing The Checkers
Early leader Tony Stewart's motor went up in smoke bringing out a caution and eliminating him from contention. Since the wide speedway had prevented many cautions from occurring there was very little attrition. Tony was credited with finishing dead last (43rd) even though he completed over 400 miles.
Then Greg Biffle had his engine go south after completing 450 of the 500 mile distance. Greg had been in a class by himself all day long. Biffle finished 42nd one spot in front of Tony Stewart.
With Biffle in the garage this opened up the race for the rest of the pack. With less than fifty miles to go the race was anyone's ballgame again.
A late blown engine set up a two lap green-white-checkers sprint for the win. Matt Kenseth lead them to the green with Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Carl Edwards and Jeff Burton hot on his heels.
Johnson put the pressure on but Matt Kenseth kept his cool and was able to hold on to take the win in California.
Top Ten
- Matt Kenseth
- Jimmie Johnson
- Carl Edwards
- Kasey Kahne
- Jeff Burton
- Jamie McMurray
- Casey Mears
- J.J. Yeley
- Mark Martin
- Kyle Busch
The Points
Jimmie Johnson's second place finish allows him to stretch his point lead over Casey Mears who also had a good day. The big mover in the points is race winner Matt Kenseth who moved up twelve spots to third.
The points are now:
- Jimmie Johnson -0
- Casey Mears -39
- Matt Kenseth -47
- Kasey Kahne -60
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. -68
- Mark Martin -80
- Ryan Newman -82
- Clint Bowyer -84
- Brian Vickers -95
- Elliott Sadler -96
Next Week
Next week the NEXTEL Cup drivers have a week off. In two weeks the drivers will head west again as the NEXTEL Cup series will invade Las Vegas on March 12th.
