PixelatedRESULTS: Why California Was a Great Race; A Detailed Look at the WISE Power 400
FONTANA, California (February 27, 2022) – Kyle Larson only led 28 laps of the 200 on the day. He emerged late, and had to fight off challenges from Chase Elliott, Daniel Suarez and Austin Dillon. When the dust settled, the California driver claimed his 17th NASCAR Cup Series win in what could quite possibly be the best ever race to be held at Auto Club Speedway.
“It’s always fun to win here in the home state,” said Larson. “There were definitely some guys that were quicker than us, but they had their misfortunes.”
“Just kept our heads in it all day—long race. Restarts were crazy. The whole runs were crazy. So definitely wild, but cool to get a win here in California and hope we get on a little streak.”
Larson had to fend off a hard charging Daniel Suarez, who was then passed by Austin Dillon. Dillon would take second place after, in comparison to the competition, appeared to have a clean race. That wasn’t exactly the case though, as Dillon fought an ill-handling car early and used his pit crew to get himself into position to battle for the win.
“Huge credit to the Lord and our pit crew,” said Dillon. “Man, they were unbelievable all day. They kept us in this race. We had to make a bunch of adjustments. We were terrible at the beginning. Just kind of learning the car myself and then communicating with Justin (Alexander, Crew Chief), we just made it better and better. We got a lot of great partners on this Dow Chevrolet. I have to thank American Ethanol, everybody that helps make this possible.
“The pit crew was the story of the day today. They were special. And my teammate (Tyler) Reddick – he balled out all day up there against the fence. I hate it for him what happened to him and I felt like if we didn’t get up there and get after it for them, it would be a let down for RCR. So, glad to get P-2.”
Larson winning, and Austin Dillon finishing second were such small parts of the greater whole in this event, that I don’t believe one article can possibly capture “all the things.” Let’s try to hit some highlights though.
Before we get to the race itself, let’s take a quick look back at practice and qualifying. The Saturday festivities provided a myriad of storylines by themselves. In the two 15 minute sessions, multiple cars spun, crashed or otherwise had issues that would lead to many drivers not being able to turn a qualifying lap.
In qualifying itself, spinning cars and chaos seemed to be the order of things. Eventually, Austin Cindric claimed the pole, an interesting feat in itself as Cindric came into Fontana as the Daytona 500 Champion. Oh, and by the way… he is a rookie.
The field now set, with cars like Kevin Harvick, Larson, and Kurt Busch starting from the rear, the race began with polsitter Cindric drifting back a bit allowing Erik Jones and Tyler Reddick to rise to the top of the heap early on. Jones would lead the first laps; the first laps led by a Petty machine at California since Bobby Labonte in 2007.
Tyler Reddick found his way to the front soon enough, and began to pull away before the first yellow of the day flew on lap 15 for Kyle Busch spinning off of turn two. This would start a trend on the day.
Throughout the first two stages, the race pace would be set by Reddick and the racing behind him would be cleaner than many would have originally expected, but dicey at the same time. The new Gen 7 cars proved to be forever twitchy and maintaining the handle while still racing at speed was tricky.
Reddick would dominate the first two stages, leading more laps in this race than all the other races he’s run, combined. His luck would run out on lap 151 after losing a tire, then being hit by William Byron in turn two.
“Absolutely gutted by how our race unfolded but I couldn’t be prouder of this whole team and what we were able to do a majority of this race today. We will learn from this; we will become stronger from this and be hungrier than ever before. It was really fun having all of the Lenovo guests here today and it was really exciting to have such a strong run for them today. We will keep this momentum going to Las Vegas next week.”
Another driver that showed promise on the day was Chase Briscoe, who took his turn at leading during the middle portion of the race. He too would lead more laps on this day than he had led in all his previous Cup Series starts, combined. Briscoe would fade late finishing 16th.
Erik Jones, who led the first laps of the race, lingered among the leaders all day long, and was a factor late, battling for a top five with Daniel Suarez.
“It was good. It feels good to be interviewed after the race, too. It’s awesome, but it’s frustrating too. You’re that close and you have a car that you feel like can do it. The No. 43 FOCUSFactor Chevrolet definitely had it today. It was a matter of getting up front and taking advantage of clean air, and we did that a couple of times. A couple restarts just didn’t go our way. I probably could have done a better job here and there, and it just didn’t add up. I just haven’t raced up front a lot in the last year and a half. There are some things I need to be better at. Hopefully I have a lot of time to work on that. We want to keep running upfront and if we keep doing that, we’re going to win some races.
“I’m really proud of this whole group. It’s been a big off season with the merger and everything we’ve done, so this is a very satisfying run for everybody and I just hope we can keep going.”
Suarez found himself battling Larson for the win in the final laps, but was just unable to clear the eventual winner, falling in behind Austin Dillon to finish third.
“We’re going to win a few races very soon here. I just can’t thank everyone enough on my team. We had a fast car, but we went through a lot of adversity. We had a few issues. We hit the wall once. We had an issue with a diffuser.
“My pit crew, those guys are legends; it’s unbelievable. It’s the best pit crew I’ve ever had, and it’s a lot of fun to race like that. Freeway Insurance, Chevrolet, everyone that helps Trackhouse Racing out to be able to be here and perform this way. I can tell you that I’m going to work very, very hard to go to Victory Lane very, very soon.”
The racing was broken up by almost evenly (okay, more sparatic than it may appear) spaced out cautions, mostly due to single car spins or issues.
- CAUTION 1: Lap 15; Kyle Busch spins off turn two.
- Lap 33; Chase Elliott slaps the wall but there is no yellow.
- Lap 37; Kyle Busch pits due to overheating.
- CAUTION 2: Lap 38; Elliott spins off of turn two while running sixth.
- CAUTION 3: Lap 53; Josh Bilicki spins in turn two.
- CAUTION 4: Tyler Reddick wins Stage 1.
- Lap 86; Kyle Busch, now four laps down, pits with a blown tire.
- CAUTION 5: Lap 91; Christopher Bell spins off of turn four as teammate Denny Hamlin pits due to overheating.
- CAUTION 6: Lap 112; Chris Buescher loses a tire, spins and slams the wall in turn two.
- CAUTION 7: Lap 116; Brad Keselowski spins after getting loose coming off turn four.
- CAUTION 8: Lap 130; Tyler Reddick wins Stage 2 and sweeps both stages on the day.
- Lap 137; Aric Almirola has a monster slide coming off of turn four, but saves it and dives down pit road.
- CAUTION 9: Lap 151; Tyler Reddick loses a left rear tire and slows then is hit by William Byron in turn two.
- CAUTION 10: Lap 157; Bubba Wallace taps Brad Keselowski’s left rear corner, sending Keselowski spinning. Keselowski collects Wallace, Austin Cindric and Harrision Burton in the crash.
- CAUTION 11: Lap 171; Ross Chastain breaks loose and spins off of turn four.
- Lap 178; Alex Bowman snaps loose in turn one and hits the wall but does not draw the yellow.
- Lap 179; Chase Elliott goes high into turn one trying to pass Kyle Larson. Larson does not see Elliott and drifts up making contact with Elliott who then hits the wall but continues on, drifting back through the field.
- CAUTION 12: Lap 191; Chase Elliott, now a lap down, loses it and spins.
- Lap 200; Justin Haley breaks loose and slams the inside pit wall near pit exit, but is able to continue on enough that the yellow does not fly.
These were my notes. Well, part of my notes. Normally, I would turn them into a chronological storyline of some kind but I shared them in this way to illustrate the pattern. Cars breaking loose in the corner, mostly in turn two and spinning out.
Afterward, the only standout downside of the race was brought to light. That being the trouble track crews are having recovering cars. This is a problem. It was last week in Daytona as well. Once a car has four flat tires it is basically stuck. Retrieving the car takes time and NASCAR is aware of the issue, and working on solutions. So while this is a bit of a black eye on an otherwise stellar event, I’m not too worried yet about this becoming a lingering issue.
The tire issues were bad, but also are a part of what made this race great. The cautions setup restarts and most would agree that NASCAR restarts are some of the most exciting in all of racing.
The racing product itself was superb as cars could catch each other, draft each other, slingshot past each other, and race hard around each other without as noticable of an aero disadvantage.
Let us not forget the surface. With the oldest pavement in NASCAR racing, Fontana’s track surface was rough, in some ways treacherous. Drivers had to navigate and race the track almost as much, maybe even more, than their fellow competitors. Straddling the seams in the pavement and dodging the tooth rattling bumps all while the sun began to set, right into their eyes, racing in Fontana was a challenge.
No more full throttle parades. The racing product we experienced on this day was top notch.
So much so, that the entire question of whether or not to convert this two mile speedway into a half-mile bullring is now in question, but that’s a topic for another day.
RESULTS — WISE Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway:
1. Kyle Larson
2. Austin Dillon
3. Erik Jones
4. Daniel Suarez
5. Joey Logano
6. Aric Almirola
7. Kevin Harvick
8. Kurt Busch
9. Daniel Hemric
10. Ricky Stenhouse Jr
11. Cole Custer
12. Austin Cindric
13. Martin Truex Jr
14. Kyle Busch
15. Denny Hamlin
16. Chase Briscoe
17. Ty Dillon
18. Ryan Blaney
19. Bubba Wallace
20. Todd Gilliland
21. Garrett Smithley
22. BJ McLeod
23. Justin Haley
24. Tyler Reddick
25. Alex Bowman
26. Chase Elliott
27. Brad Keselowski
28. Corey LaJoie
29. Ross Chastain
30. Josh Bilicki
31. Michael McDowell
32. Cody Ware
33. Harrison Burton
34. William Byron
35. Chris Buescher
36. Christopher Bell
- By: Daniel Vining, Twitter: @danielvining
- Screenshot from FOX Broadcast
PixelatedSPEED.com is a motorsports-centric news and opinion website published by content creator Daniel Vining. The mission is simple; inform, entertain and inspire motorsports lifestyle enthusiasts using imagery and storytelling to capture news and history. If you’ve made it this far into the post, thank you. Please consider sharing this content on the interwebs and following PixelatedSPEED on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Copyright PixelatedSPEED – 2018 – 2022
