Kevin Harvick of Richard Childress Racong returned to victories after winning Auto Club 400 at the Fontana Speesway. Victory was accomplished when he powered his No. 29 Chevrolet to the outside of Johnson's No. 48 Chevy through the last Turns 3 and 4 of the race and beat Johnson to the finish line by a margin of .144 seconds. Auto Cub 500 victory was Harvick's first of the 2011 season and 15th of his career and it came from nowhere as a thunder in the Californian desert.
Most part of the race was a hunting between Kyle Busch and tony Stewart. After a cycle of stops that began when Kyle Busch pitted from the lead on Lap 138, Kyle Busch held a 6.5-second lead over Stewart, who began to make up ground throughout the ensuing green-flag run and soon he erased all but 1.3 seconds of Busch's advantage when another cycle of green-flag stops widened the lead to 2.5 seconds.
Andy Lally's spin off Turn 4 on Lap 170, however, brought out the third caution of the race and bunched the field for a restart on Lap 175. Kyle Busch and Stewart took the green flag side-by-side, with Busch in the outside lane, and the driver of the No. 18 Toyota pulled away to a half-second lead within three laps.
Still, the incident that determined the outcome of the race was a caution on Lap 185 of 200, after Bobby Labonte blew a right-front tire and slammed the Turn 4 wall, meant decision time for the crew chiefs. With Labonte's wrecked car blocking the entrance to pit road, the pits remained closed until Lap 189, when Labonte's car was dragged to the garage by a wrecker.
Busch, Johnson, Tony Stewart, Bowyer, Harvick, Newman and Edwards stayed on the track during the caution, with Kenseth leading a group of cars to pit road.
After the pit stop, it was Johnson that was running after Kyle Busch who held the lead until Lap 198, when Johnson passed him to the inside after the cars crossed the stripe. However, the duel between Busch and Johnson allowed Harvick to gain ground and after a little bump to Johnson's rear he made the surprising-out of nowhere pass just 2 turns before the finish.
Harvick commented:
"Those guys just started to race. They got side by side, and we were able to pull up in there. The more laps we got on our tires, the better we were, but I was really nervous about that last call -- staying out -- but it all worked out in our favor, and we were able to make up ground.
[Crew chief] Gil [Martin] obviously knew that we were better after the tires had air in them [as pressure built during green-flag runs], and it all worked out [Sunday]."
Johnson who lost the race so badly commented:
"If I could have gotten by the No. 18 [Busch] a lap sooner, maybe that would have made the difference, and I would have had enough of a margin to hold off the No. 29, but he was rolling on the top. I did all I could. I was dead sideways. I think I hit the fence one time off of [Turn] 2, chasing Kyle, with the right rear first because it was sliding off the corner."
Kyle Busch, who led a race-high 151 laps, finished just third, followed by Matt Kenseth and Ryan Newman. Carl Edwards was left out of top-5 this time by finishing 6th and was followed by Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers, Kasey Kahne and pole-sitter Juan Montoya who completed the top 10.
