and I love California Speedway. ‘Rowdy Nation’ was loud and proud. Glad I was able to win the final one here.”
The win is the 61st of his career for Busch, who also sets a new NASCAR record by winning a Cup Series race for a 19th consecutive season. The previous record was held by Richard Petty (18).
“There’s not many things you can do to beat out Richard Petty but man that’s awesome,” Busch said.
Chase Elliot used a late run to finished second, Ross Chastain took third and Daniel Suarez was fourth as Chevrolet placed 1-2-3-4.
“I thought we got really close there at the end but our guys battled all day to get us there,” said Elliott, who started 33rd after a tough finish at Daytona last week.
Alex Bowman was out front for the opening 23 laps before Chastain was the first to go low and grab his first lead on Lap 24.
Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney took early turns at the head of the pack but Chastain quickly proved among the fastest on the day when he regained the lead on Lap 48 and ran unopposed to lead Stage 1.
Denny Hamlin ran up front early in Stage 2, and Logano pushed for the lead until A.J. Allmendinger got checked by Corey LaJoie and was sent sliding into the inside wall on Lap 75.
While under caution, Martin Truex Jr.’s crew failed to secure a tire and accrued a two-lap penalty before a multi-car crash on the restart on Lap 87 ended the race for Eric Amirola, Jason Preece, Christopher Bell, and Tyler Reddick as 10 cars sustained damage.
“Everyone just stopped. It caused a huge wreck,” Amirola said. “To come here and not get a result is tough.”
After debris was cleared, Chastian found his way back to the lead in Stage 2, pulling away from Busch by more than 6 seconds to sweep both stages of a race for the first time in his career.
“I feel like all the Chevys were pretty similar, and I think (Busch and Elliott) just hit on a few things and we didn’t,” said Chastain, who has won three of the four stages this season.
The leaders pitted with 33 laps to go and Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Harrison Burton, Michael McDowell all took turns up front before Busch, on four fresh tires, ran down McDowell on Lap 180.
“This is the first race nobody ran into me,” said Busch, who crashed out last week at the Daytona 500.
Elliott got inside of Chastain with 19 laps left but neither was able to catch Busch, who nudged the wall on Lap 188 but stayed the course to win for his third owner at Fontana.
Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. bumped up into the wall twice with 85 laps to go and hung in to finish 12th.
Kyle Larsen, last year’s race winner, was forced to pit on Lap 12 ahead of the scheduled competition caution and went to the garage with an electrical issue. After his team replaced all ignition wiring, Larsen re-entered the race 16 laps off the pace but finished 29th.