Times wires
Saturday, March 26, 2011
FONTANA, Calif. — Kyle Busch had resigned himself to finishing behind Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick, figuring his car didn't have enough to keep up.
Then his crew chief called for a gamble on the final pit stop: take two tires, not four.
Busch was all for it and ended up with another win in California.
Heeding crew chief Jason Ratcliff's advice, Busch came out of the pits in the lead after taking two tires on a late stop, then he held off Edwards and Harvick to win his third straight Nationwide race at Auto Club Speedway on Saturday.
"I thought four tires was just going to be a consistent call, just give us a third-place run," Busch said after his 46th career Nationwide win, two behind Mark Martin's all-time mark. "But Jason surprised us all and pulled one out of the hat."
Edwards and Harvick had the dominant cars most of the day, leading a combined 112 laps around the wide 2-mile oval.
Busch figured he had no better than a fourth- or fifth-place car, not able to pass the leaders.
But then came his turn down pit road with 13 laps left.
"I still can't believe it actually worked out," Ratcliff said.
Busch has won five of his past six starts at Auto Club Speedway and three of the five Nationwide races this season after completing the Nationwide-Sprint Cup sweep at Bristol last week.
Edwards started on the pole and had a strong car all day, leading 48 laps. He passed Harvick to finish second but walked away scratching his head after Busch's two-tire gamble worked.
"I didn't think about taking two tires until the left side of the car was going up," Edwards said. "I wondered if someone might just take two."
Harvick finished third, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was fourth.
Formula One: Defending series champion Sebastian Vettel earned the pole for today's season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. The Red Bull driver clocked 1 minute, 23.529 seconds, more than three-quarters of a second quicker than Lewis Hamilton of McLaren.