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Clean sweep

Driver Matt Kenseth, front left, poses for photographs with his team after winning the NASCAR Auto Club 500. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Mike Harris Associated Press
Driver Matt Kenseth, front left, poses for photographs with his team after winning the NASCAR Auto Club 500. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

FONTANA, Calif. – With crew chief Robbie Reiser back home in North Carolina on a NASCAR-enforced absence from the racetrack, Matt Kenseth and the rest of the No. 17 team just tried to remember the lessons he has taught them over the years.

Kenseth drove the Roush Fenway Racing Ford to the front and his veteran crew gave him a series of sparkling pit stops, including a very fast one Sunday near the end of the Auto Club 500 that put the 2003 NASCAR champion into the lead for good.

“It’s a special win,” an emotional Kenseth said after bouncing back from a disappointing Daytona 500 with his second victory of the weekend and second Nextel Cup win at California Speedway. “It’s not without Robbie though. He spent the week at home while we were at Daytona building this car. Robbie built this team.”

Kenseth, who got caught up in the last-lap melee the previous week at the Daytona 500 and wound up 27th after starting that lap in third, stayed away from trouble this time and took the lead with the fast stop during a caution 23 laps from the finish.

The victory, his 15th in Cup, came with engineer Chip Bolin sitting in for Reiser, sent home for four races after the team was caught cheating at the beginning of Daytona’s Speedweeks. And it came less than 24 hours after Kenseth won the Busch Series race on the same 2-mile oval.

Kevin Harvick, who swept the Busch and Cup races at Daytona, came out of the final pit stop in second and was making up ground on Kenseth until rookie David Reutimann and former series champion Bobby Labonte crashed on lap 243 of the 250-lap event.

NASCAR red-flagged the race to give safety officials time to clean up the debris from the wreck. Once the cars were restarted, Harvick found he had a deflating left front tire and had to pit. He wound up 17th, the last car on the lead lap.

Three-time California winner Jeff Gordon, the only other multiple Cup race winner here, jumped past Jeff Burton into second on the restart with four laps to go, but couldn’t get close enough to challenge Kenseth the rest of the way. Kenseth won by about six car-lengths.

Defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who finished 39th at Daytona, also bounced back with a third-place finish Sunday, followed by Burton, Mark Martin, Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch.

Martin, who lost to Harvick at Daytona by the length of a hood, had another good race and put himself and his new team, Ginn Racing, into the series points lead. It’s the first time leading the points for the team, now in its 11th year.