FONTANA, Calif. — When dark clouds ominously obscured the sky north of Auto Club Speedway early in Sunday’s race, NASCAR’s drivers all realized they were probably in for a short day on a long track.
Nobody did a better job racing until the raindrops fell than Tony Stewart.
Stewart got his second NASCAR victory of the season when rain shortened the race at Auto Club Speedway by 71 laps, extending the defending Sprint Cup champion’s strong start.
Kyle Busch finished second, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. added to his good start to the season in third.
“You hate to have it end with rain like that,” Stewart said. “But we’ve lost some that way, and we didn’t back into the lead.”
Stewart has won seven of the last 15 races, including Las Vegas earlier this month. Stewart and new crew chief Steve Addington didn’t mention the rain to each other until moments before it hit one end of the 2-mile oval, but they had already done the work necessary to win.
“It’s been nice to get off to a good start this year the way we have,” said Stewart, who has been even more impressive this year despite firing crew chief Darian Grubb last December. “The history shows the last 13 years, we haven’t had the strongest start the first third of the year, but I’m really excited about the start we’ve got going. Daytona was probably our weakest race, and I know I made decisions trying to make things happen and it didn’t work out. I’m really proud of what Steve and all our guys have done.”
Stewart’s Chevrolet passed Busch 44 laps before the race was stopped when the looming rain clouds finally burst and halted a race run entirely on green flags to that point.
A few drivers weren’t happy when the race was called off after a delay of just more than 30 minutes amid steady rain, but it gave Stewart his 46th career victory and his second at Fontana.
“Playing to the weather, everybody is trying to get everything they can get toward the midway point of that race,” Stewart said.
Defending race winner Kevin Harvick was fourth, and Carl Edwards was fifth. Greg Biffle, Edwards’ Roush Fenway Racing teammate, finished sixth and kept a seven point lead on Harvick atop the points standings.
“We had a great race car there from the start of the race,” said Busch, who started second alongside teammate Denny Hamlin and took the lead on the second lap. “We led a lot of laps. I just wish we led 30 more.”
The drivers saw only blue skies at their meeting two hours before the race began, but the weather steadily worsened. The resulting drop in temperature threw off many teams’ calculations on air pressure and other decisions, forcing adjustments on their first pit stops.
Realizing they might not be able to get much past the halfway point necessary to make a race official, the drivers mounted a fast, clean race on the extra-wide track, nearly setting the track record for consecutive green-flag laps until the rain finally forced a caution on the 125th lap.
“We all knew it was just going to be a matter of time,” Busch said. “So probably at Lap 60 or 70, we were thinking, ‘OK, we’re probably going to race to Lap 100.”’
Although most forecasts suggested the rain would stick around for a while, Hamlin went to Twitter to express his displeasure with NASCAR’s decision to end the race with five hours of daylight left.
“Never seen a race called at 2pm before,” Hamlin tweeted. “1st time for everything. Strong weekend.”
After hitting the wall late in last week’s race at Bristol, Stewart was back in top form. He earned his earliest victory in a NASCAR season two weeks ago at Las Vegas with an aggressive move out of a restart, but the real racing at Fontana hadn’t even started before rain hit.
“We didn’t have an opportunity to do anything other than what we had planned from the start,” said Earnhardt, who has finished in the top 15 in all five races this season. “I like how our season is going so far. If we keep going like this, maybe we can get some opportunities ... and seal the deal.” INDYCAR
Castroneves wins opener
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Helio Castroneves used a bold pass of Scott Dixon to win the IndyCar season opener.
Castroneves’ victory Sunday comes as the Brazilian is attempting to rebound from the worst year of his career. He went winless last season for the first time in IndyCar and finished 11th.
The Penske Racing driver gave Chevrolet a victory in its debut race. The engine manufacturer returned to IndyCar after a six-year absence.
Dixon finished second for Target Chip Ganassi Racing in a Honda. He was also runner-up to Castroneves in both 2006 and 2007. Pole-sitter Will Power failed to overcome a decision to pit early for gas and finished seventh.
RACE STATISTICS
AVERAGE SPEED OF WINNER 160.166 mph.
TIME OF RACE 1 hour, 36 minutes, 39 seconds.
VICTORY MARGIN Under Caution.
CAUTION FLAGS 1 for 5 laps.
LEAD CHANGES 9 (5 drivers).
LAP LEADERS
DRIVER LAPS
D.Hamlin 1
Ky.Busch 2-67
D.Hamlin 68
J.Gordon 69
J.Johnson 70
DRIVER LAPS
Ky.Busch 71-84
T.Stewart 85-104
J.Johnson 105
J.Gordon 106-107
T.Stewart 108-129
LEADERS SUMMARY
DRIVER NO. LAPS
Ky.Busch 2 80
T.Stewart 2 42
J.Gordon 2 3
DRIVER NO. LAPS
J.Johnson 2 2
D.Hamlin 2 2
Victory lane At Auto Club Speedway, Fontana, Calif.
Tony Stewart Chevy $323,450
Kyle Busch Toyota $259,698
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevy $170,165
Kevin Harvick Chevy $181,551
Carl Edwards Ford $161,056
Greg Biffle Ford $119,590
Ryan Newman Chevy $146,448
Martin Truex Jr. Toyota $131,504
Kurt Busch Chevy $138,898
Jimmie Johnson Chevy $142,201
ALSO 12. Mark Martin Toyota $96,355
STANDINGS
DRIVER PTS.
Biffle 195
Harvick 188
Earnhardt 178
Stewart 177
Truex Jr. 175
Kenseth 173
DRIVER PTS.
Hamlin 171
Bowyer 157
Johnson 156
Newman 155
Menard 148
Edwards 146
Sports, Pages 13 on 03/26/2012