Danica Patrick achieved her goal Saturday: She finished the race.
Kyle Busch wound up where he often does when he visits Auto Club Speedway - Victory Lane.
And Joey Logano, driver of the best car in the Stater Bros. 300 field? He would have crossed the finish line too, had it extended into the infield grass.
Busch held off Greg Biffle by .051 seconds on a green-white-checkered restart, the 10th-closest margin of victory in the history of NASCAR’s second-tier series. It was his sixth victory at the track and his third here in the Nationwide Series, the last of which came a year ago today. Whittier Daily News
On the final restart, created after Brendan Gaughan spun out on lap 145 to bring out a caution, Biffle quickly pushed by Logano and Busch followed him. Busch then got under Biffle on the final turn and beat him for his 31st Nationwide victory, tying him for third on the career list after only 175 starts.
“This is a neat race track, it’s pretty wide and spread out. ... There at the end, it felt like the race track was really narrow,” Busch said. “It was exciting for us.”
Logano was trying to win from the pole at California for the second time in a row. But Busch still gave Gibbs its fifth consecutive Nationwide victory in Southern California, with an average speed of 143.886 mph despite leading only four of the 152 laps.
When the race restarted after an earlier caution for debris, Logano was in 11th place behind several cars who decided not to pit and 1.5 seconds behind Biffle, who had taken the lead. He needed only eight laps to go back, passing Biffle coming out of Turn 4 on lap 100 and staying there until the final restart.
“The 20 (Logano) just made a rookie mistake and spun his tires on the restart,” Biffle said. “Before, I just couldn’t keep up with him on the restarts. He was just driving away from me.”
But Biffle knew what was going to happen when Busch got a good run on him at the end.
“I figured he was going to beat me,” Biffle said. The Canadian Press
On the other hand Danica Patrick accomplished one of her goals by finishing the race. She is still a long way from the lead packs in NASCAR. She started the day 36th and quickly dropped to the back of the field. She was passed by Logano only 17 laps into the race. Yet, it took another 43 laps before Logano lapped her again.
On her first two stops, Patrick was penalized for speeding on pit row. Patrick repeatedly said this week that the difficult part for her is not knowing for sure how things are supposed to feel in a stock car. It was clear she was trying to figure that out and she accomplished what she has to do—focus on running laps and gaining experience.
“You progressed a lot in this race, girl. I’m proud of you, what you’ve learned,” crew chief Tony Eury Jr. told her over the radio more than two-thirds of the way through the race.
Danica Finishes 31st in the race. NASCAR
NASCAR Nationwide Series: Stater Bros. 300 at Fontana - Race Results
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