More than 23 hours after the original scheduled start time and more than 20 hours after the first green flag fell Roush-Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards extended his teams’ awesome record in Southern California by winning the Auto Club 500 at the two-mile Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.
After one of the wettest and most miserable race weekends in recent Cup Series memory it was suitably ironic that Monday dawned bright and clear in Southern California with blue skies bathing the track surface and illuminating the San Bernardino mountains just to the north of the Roger Penske built venue.
It was also pleasing to see that the spectators, many of whom sat through Saturday evening’s Nationwide Series rainout and all of Sunday’s somewhat farcical efforts, returned in droves to watch a double bill of racing starting with the final 165 laps of the 250-lap Cup Series race.
Less than 12 hours after NASCAR finally called a halt to Sunday’s proceedings the green flag waved on lap 90 with polesitter Jimmie Johnson leading the field across the stripe and into turn one to begin part two of the second round of the 2008 season.
Part one, which began some two and a half hours later than planned on a grey and gloomy Sunday afternoon, had been dominated by Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon. Right from the outset Gordon had marched away from the other 42 drivers, penned back only by a succession of caution flags and stoppages that were both directly and indirectly, weather related.
Weeping seams in the asphalt at both ends of the speedway contributed to Denny Hamlin hitting the wall in turn four on lap eleven to bring out the first caution of the day and then Casey Mears and Sam Hornish Jr’s spectacular demise on lap 25 in a fiery crash that also claimed Mears’ Hendrick teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr and the Ganassi Racing Dodge of Reed Sorenson.
![Carl Edwards, Roush-Fenway Ford [Pic Credit Ford Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/405819.jpg)
