Keselowski Upsets Busch's Drive for Perfect Weekend

Kurt Busch came within a lap of a perfect weekend (Google Images)

On Friday and Saturday at Auto Club Speedway, Kurt Busch led in every possible statistical category. He won the pole for Sunday's race, was the fastest in every practice session and was the fastest car in the best ten lap average category as well. As Busch said Sunday, all that was left was for him to do his job; put together a solid 400 miles and get his No. 41 Chevy to victory lane for the first time since Martinsville last spring. This being Busch's second race back from his indefinite suspension for a domestic violence charge that was never proven, a win would also go a long way towards putting that behind him as well.

But on a restart with two laps to go, Brad Keselowski passed Busch off turn two on the final lap of the race. Busch then overdrove his car off turn four, brushed the wall and allowed teammate Kevin Harvick to pass him for second. Busch's Chevrolet that had dominated the weekend was relegated to a third place finish.

It was a Stewart-Haas Racing front row, with Busch on the pole and Harvick starting second. While Busch was going for his first win of the year, Harvick was going for his third in a row and a sweep of NASCAR's west coast swing. While many drivers were able to contend with the duo, it appeared that either Harvick or Busch was going to see their die cast cars being towed on a trailer behind the woody wagon that sits atop the winner's trophy.

The first caution came out oddly enough on lap 24 for an incident involving Jeff Gordon and David Ragan. The two drivers had been racing hard and, apparently Gordon thought Ragan raced him a little bit too hard because he got close to Ragan's left rear and took the air off his spoiler, sending him spinning off turn four. Fortunately, Ragan didn't hit anything so he was able to keep moving.

Brad Keselowski celebrates his first Fontana win (Google Images)

This first caution might've been for a little on track disagreement, but the third one was for a bonehead move by Sam Hornish Jr's spotter, former race car driver Tony Raines. FOX played the audio and Raines cleared the No. 9 Ford to slide up on front of the No. 6 car of Trevor Bayne on lap 99. Only problem was that Bayne was still up to Hornish's right side door when he tried to clear the No. 6 car off turn two. Hornish said it best on his radio after the wreck, yelling at his spotter, "All clear, two back to the [No.] 38? Are you kidding me?" Apparently Raines is just as effective with a pair of binoculars as he was with a steering wheel.

The next few cautions were all for debris and, until the last few restarts, it looked as if Stewart-Haas or Joe Gibbs Racing was going to win. We've established how strong Busch and Harvick were, leading 65 and 34 laps respectively on the day, but JGR drivers Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth were just as effective. Both drivers have always been dominant at Fontana and this Sunday was no different. Hamlin led 56 laps in his No. 11 Camry and Kenseth led 43 laps in his DeWalt Toyota. But unfortunately, both of their days would soon go south in a hurry. Hamlin made contact with the wall that took a lot of the speed and the handle away from his car, making it almost impossible for him to hold the lead with Busch and Harvick on his heels.

Kenseth's issues, however, were much more terminal. On a late pit stop, as he left his box after his crew dropped the jack, Kenseth broke a right rear axle. California has an asphalt pit road with concrete pit boxes. This means two different grip levels and going from one to the other can lead to things like broken axels or U-joints. But Kenseth was still in his box at the time his axle decided to quit, so as his jack man let the car down and Kenseth hit the gas, the timing was probably just right that the rear tires hit the ground spinning and overworked just caused the axle to snap. Kenseth was forced to limp down pit road and back to his box so his crew could replace the broken part, which relegated him to a 31st place finish. However, the 2003 champ did manage to stay on the lead lap. Hamlin finished 28th on the day, beating his teammate by a few positions.

But it was the final two restarts that caused the most controversy. NASCAR threw a caution with less than two laps to go for "debris" between turns three and four. This led Busch to radio to his crew, "WWE," likening NASCAR to the wrestling league, which is famous for staging the results of their fights. This set up a green white checker restart and, once the field took the green, close racing off turn two caused Kyle Larson's taillight panel to fly off his car. This led to another debris caution (good thing we could see the debris this time), and another green white checker restart. Busch had held his own on the final two restarts, but FOX's cameras cut to his crew chief, Tony Gibson and it looked like he was about to put his fist through his laptop.



Kevin Harvick had a very good weekend in Fontana (Google Images)

This set up one final restart. Just as he'd done all day, Busch got out to a decent lead coming to the white flag. But while Harvick was behind him in second, Keselowski snuck around the four car and coming off turn two on the last lap, Keselowski's No. 2 had slipped past the No. 41. Keselowski led just one lap all day, but it was the one that paid the most to lead. FOX panned over to Gibson one final time and the look of disappointment and sheer disbelief made you feel a little bit bad. I know it's Kurt Busch, but it's hard to see such a dominant car finish third. You can hear Busch talk to FOX Sports reporter Matt Yocum after the race here.

But it wasn't such a bad one for SHR. Beating his teammate for second by a bumper led Harvick to a pretty staggering statistic. It was Harvick's eight consecutive finish of either first or second place. For a driver who only won his first title last season, Harvick has been putting up numbers not seen since Jimmie Johnson won five consecutive titles. from 2006 to 2010. The No. 4 team with Harvick at the wheel and Rodney Childers on the box has been absolutely unstoppable since joining forces last season. They could well be the new Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus of the sport. Harvick's weekend was made all the more impressive by winning Saturday's XFINITY Series race in the No. 88 TaxSlayer.com Camaro for JR Motorsports.

NASCAR's west coast swing is done and now, the tour will head back east to race at the Martinsville Speedway on Sunday. This is normally a very entertaining and exciting race, made all the more interesting because it's Chase Elliott's Sprint Cup Series debut for Hendrick Motorsports. This will also be the first race broadcast live on FOX Sports 1 (which is a topic for a rant for another post). If you get FOX Sports 1 or you know someone who does, you can catch Chase's debut, and all of the tight, bumper banging, fender crunching action from Martinsville live at 1 pm/et on Sunday.