Fontana, CA (Best E Casino) - Jimmie Johnson will lead the field to the green flag to restart the race on Monday at 12:45 p.m. (et) after a third rain storm halted the race 87 laps into the 250-lap Auto Club 500 at the Auto Club Speedway (formerly California Speedway). NASCAR officials tried to dry the track, but finally gave up at 2 a.m. (et).
Behind Johnson will be Travis Kvapil, Kyle Busch, Greg Biffle and Kasey Kahne. Jeff Gordon is sixth, defending champion Matt Kenseth is 14th and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 40th after being involved in a crash.
The rain that had disrupted both Friday and Saturday race activities continued through Sunday and delayed the start of the race by more than two hours, but finally the call to "start your engines" came just past 6:15 p.m. (et) and the race began a few minutes later.
Johnson sat on the pole, but it was Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon who led the first lap and gained five bonus points. Gordon was flying building a two-second lead by lap four.
On lap 10, two-time Auto Club 500 champion made an unscheduled pit stop with an overheating engine. The team quickly pulled off debris from the front grill, but the 2003 Sprint Cup Series champion fell a lap down to the field.
Gordon's big lead lasted until lap 14 when Denny Hamlin slapped the outside wall following a tire failure. He blamed weepers for the incident. A weeper is water pushing through a crack in the surface from below because of previous rain storms.
Kevin Harvick had been pitting just as the Hamlin accident happened (overheating) and his bad luck turned into good, keeping him on the lead lap when the incident happened.
Gordon let Johnson lead one lap and then charged back to the lead. Then on lap 20, Casey Mears got spun around and Dale Earnhardt Jr. tried to slip underneath him, but couldn't make it, getting collected along with Reed Sorenson and Sam Hornish Jr.
"I think I hit some water (from a weeper)," said Mears. "There were a few in (turn) one and more in (turn) three."
"The track's real dirty and everybody's sliding around," said Earnhardt Jr. "The track ain't ready today. The track's dirty, and this was a bad move."
NASCAR brought out the red flag to get the drivers out and clean up all the debris. They also tried to dry up the seeping water, but it seemed to be a losing battle. They even tried cutting grooves in the track to allow the water to get out and that finally seemed to do the trick. After a 70-minute delay, the engines were fired again.
Again, Gordon opened up a two-second lead on his teammate as the field passed the 30-lap mark. But he was complaining that his water temperature was climbing. Would he have to stop to clean debris off his front grill?
He slowed to let Johnson go by and hope that the air flow would knock the debris off. It did and Gordon's water temperature fell back to the normal level.
Gordon flew around Johnson and was leading on lap 39 when the rain began to fall again. Seven laps under yellow and the green flag dropped to restart the race.
By lap 50, Carl Edwards joined the two Hendrick cars to see what he could do. And Kyle Busch, who had an overheating problem and had to restart the race in 37th, was just outside the top-10.
Gordon, Edwards and Johnson built a three-second margin on fourth place as Edwards was showing he was equal to the two HMS stars.
Jeff Burton, in the No.31 RCR Chevrolet, took just two tires to grab the lead and five bonus points after a Jeremy Mayfield flat tire caused the fourth caution flag. But with only two new right-side tires, he quickly fell back through the field.
Gordon, Johnson Edwards were one-two-three, but the man on the move was Busch, who flew past Greg Biffle and Burton for fifth place just before caution flag No.5.
Biffle used a two-tire stop to move ahead of the Gordon and Johnson and he easily passed Jamie McMurray, who stayed out on old tires, for the lead on lap 73.
Biffle was holding the lead at about one second over Johnson despite having only put on two right-side tires at the last stop. Another caution flag and this time when the leaders came in, Biffle took four tires, coming out fourth.
Before the green flag dropped on lap 85, the bad weather began again, and NASCAR called off the restart. The rain got heavier and NASCAR called the cars down pit lane for a second red flag.
They never restarted the race and officials rescheduled the race for Monday at 12:45 p.m. The rain also forced the Nationwide race, to be started one hour after the Sprint Cup race was over, to move to Monday as well.
