Fryer's Five: California

Slumdog Millionaire cleaned up at the Academy Awards and Heath Ledger won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, making for a fairly predictable Sunday night in southern California.

Not much was different some 50 miles away in Fontana, where Matt Kenseth rolled to his second straight victory in what's shaping up to be his comeback season. Although Kenseth became just the fourth driver in NASCAR history to win the Daytona 500 and the race that follows, it was a fairly uneventful weekend at Auto Club Speedway.

Sure, Kenseth's win in the Auto Club 500 was a bit of an upset considering how dominant Jimmie Johnson had been leading up to race day. And there was a bit of suspense as Kyle Busch chased a weekend sweep of all three NASCAR national races.

But in the end, how big of a surprise is it when a former champion, who happens to drive for a super team in Roush Fenway Racing, wins?

Not much.

After all, Kenseth is pretty darn good in California, where he'd previously won in 2006 and 2007 and has 11 top-10 finishes in 15 career starts.

So, yes, California proved that Kenseth and new crew chief Drew Blickensderfer have re-established the No. 17 as a team to beat this season. There were a few interesting developments, such as Brian Vickers' pole-winning run (and subsequent engine change that forced him to drive from the back to his 10th-place finish).

Aside from that, it seemed to be just another routine weekend at the race track. Here are five things that we didn't exactly learn anew, but were reiterated at California:

1. Jeff Gordon is back after a mediocre (by Gordon's standards) 2008 season:

Gordon roared to victory lane with a win in his Daytona 500 qualifying race and then quickly admitted the non-points event didn't count toward breaking the longest drought of his Cup career. Although it stretched to 43 races when he failed to chase down Kenseth in the closing laps Sunday, his second-place finish proved he's bounced back from one of the worst seasons of his career.

Gordon went winless last year, the first time since his 1993 rookie season, and failed to legitimately contend for the championship just a year removed from falling short in the most compelling title race since the Chase was created in 2004. He revealed in Daytona that he's been plagued by an ailing back, the effects of a lackluster workout routine and his 20-plus years spent in the cockpit of a race car.

He now has a trainer – and the physically fit Mark Martin as his teammate to shame him into the gym – and is committed to a strength and conditioning routine that will prevent back spasms and tightness from breaking his concentration during a race.

But he's also got a rejuvenated race team, thanks in large part to crew chief Steve Letarte handing team owner Rich Hendrick a list of necessary changes the team needed to make as they left last year's season finale in Homestead.

Hendrick vowed at Daytona that Gordon will win "multiple races" this season, and although he's yet to do so through the first two events, ol' four-time appears poised to back up the boss' promise.

2. Kyle Busch is pretty good in a race car:

There's a risk, particularly at the start of the season, of coming across as a Busch cheerleader. Who cares? His on-track performance warrants it.

Busch is the only driver who can honestly look in the mirror today and say he could – maybe even should – be undefeated this season. He could have won the Truck and Nationwide Series races in Daytona, but his last-lap maneuvers failed him with the victories on the line.

And it's well documented he should have won the Daytona 500, if only he had not fallen victim to that late-race Dale Earnhardt Jr./Brian Vickers fiasco.

So what did Busch do? He rolled into California intent on claiming as many wins as he could.

First up was the truck race, where he led all but five of the 100 laps en route to a dominating win. Then after practicing in his Cup car, he hopped into his Nationwide ride for a Saturday doubleheader. The result was no different, as Busch led all but seven of the 150 laps.

Let's see: 250 laps completed, 238 of them out front. Oh, and two trophies headed home to his rapidly growing collection.

All that was left for his weekend sweep was Sunday's Cup race, where Busch had a legitimate chance. Alas, he had to settle for a third-place finish that left him hungry for more.

"The last one's always the hardest to get … it's on Sunday and it's the biggest show," he said. "It's not easy in this sport. Never is. But maybe one day."

3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. can learn a thing or two about humility from Greg Biffle:

Before anyone thinks this is an anti-Earnhardt rant, he gets credit for the really good job he did all weekend in dealing with the controversy stemming from his Daytona 500 wreck with Brian Vickers. He accepted the role he played in the nine-car accident and revealed he phoned Vickers to talk it out before they arrived in California.

Absolutely honorable behavior. But it pales in comparison to Biffle's instantaneous acceptance of guilt for not winning Sunday night.

Biffle had a strong car and led 16 laps, but was tripped up in the pits when he ran over an air hose – a miscue that contributed to his fourth-place finish. Biffle manned-up the minute he climbed from his car. Devastated that driver error had played a role in the defeat, he admitted he'd gotten greedy trying to beat Gordon out of the pits, and it cost the entire No. 16 team.

"I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight. I'm just sick to my stomach, man. It almost brings tears to my eyes to know that I let the guys down like I did," he said.

4. Stewart-Haas Racing has its stuff together, at least on the No. 14 car:

Winless in California – one of only three active race tracks where he's yet to notch a victory – Tony Stewart didn't head to Auto Club Speedway expecting to be overly competitive. After all, if Joe Gibbs Racing couldn't conquer the track, there was no reason to believe his overhauled Stewart-Haas Racing team would get him to victory lane.

He never did challenge Kenseth or Gordon, but he led three laps and finished eighth to prove he and crew chief Darian Grubb really have their stuff together.

"This isn't one of my strongest tracks, and to come out of here with a top-10 with this young of a team as far as us working together, that's a pretty strong statement right there," he said.

Of course, he made a really strong statement in Daytona when his cars (yes, plural, he and teammate Ryan Newman ran through five Chevrolets before Speedweeks was over) proved SHR made significant offseason gains in upgrading his new race team. But it's hard to gauge much by Daytona, so California was the real test for Stewart.

There's still work to be done with Newman, who was 28th in California but had to drive from the back of the field after a piece of his rear wing fell off during the first caution. But no one really expected much this season from the two SHR entries, and after two races and consecutive eighth-place finishes, Stewart is holding down the third spot in the points standings.

5. The track needs to be changed:

So TV made the crowd look better than it was Sunday night, but that doesn't mean all is well with Auto Club Speedway. With a ridiculously late start time – the field didn't even take the green flag until 6:22 p.m. ET, just when the A-listers began their red carpet arrivals – and a finish that went head-to-head with Ledger's posthumous Oscar win, Fox shouldn't expect much from the television ratings.

But blame some of that on the track itself. The 2-mile slightly banked oval just doesn't produce good racing, at least not in conjunction with NASCAR's new model race car. The lack of excitement made it easy to flip back and forth between the Oscars without fear of missing a thing on the race track. In fact, the only racing-related caution over the three-plus hours of racing came with 42 laps left when Kevin Harvick blew an engine – something that sent him hard into the wall.

So what to do?

Well, assuming International Speedway Corporation is prudent enough to recognize the problem, the company will spend whatever is necessary on alterations aimed at improving the racing. One idea: progressive banking. Maybe it will create better on-track action. Maybe not. But anything has got to be better than Sunday night's 500-mile parade.