The 2005 Sony HD 500 was a NASCAR Nextel Cup Series stock car race held on September 4, 2005, in Fontana, California at California Speedway, a superspeedway track, before a crowd of approximately 100,000 spectators. It was the twenty-fifth race of the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. Kyle Busch of the Hendrick Motorsports team won the 254-lap race, which was extended by four laps because of a green–white–checkered finish. Roush Racing driver Greg Biffle finished second, and Busch's teammate Brian Vickers was third.
Tony Stewart led the Drivers' Championship by 213 points over Jimmie Johnson before the race. Carl Edwards earned his first pole position by recording the quickest lap time of qualifications. Beginning on lap two, the lead was traded several times between Edwards' Roush Racing teammates Mark Martin, Kurt Busch, and Biffle before Edwards reclaimed the top position during a restart on the 27th lap; he led until a tire puncture caused him to spin on lap 47. Kyle Busch became the first non-Roush Racing driver to lead on lap 82, and although Matt Kenseth consistently made fast pit stops to claim the lead during caution periods, Busch repeatedly overtook him on restarts. During a lap-242 caution for debris, Kyle Busch switched two tires as opposed to four because he parked his car too close to the pit wall, but quickly passed the two cars ahead of him and held off his competitors to achieve his first Nextel Cup Series win, becoming the youngest driver to do so. The lead was changed 30 times between 12 drivers and the caution flag was issued 11 times.
The final result meant that Stewart maintained his Drivers' Championship lead, while Biffle took the second position from Johnson and Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon were displaced from the final two provisional spots of the Chase for the Nextel Cup by Kenseth and Jamie McMurray, respectively. Joe Gibbs also kept his lead in the Owners' Championship, as did Chevrolet in the Manufacturers' Championship with 11 races left in the season.
Background
The 2005 Sony HD 500 was the 25th of 36 scheduled stock car races of the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. It was scheduled to run for 250 laps over a distance of , and was held on Sunday, September 4, 2005, in Fontana, California at California Speedway, a superspeedway that hosted NASCAR races. Its standard layout is a four-turn, -long D-shaped oval track with banking of 14 degrees in the turns, 11 degrees in the front stretch (where the start-finish line is located), and three degrees in the back stretch. The NASCAR Nextel Cup Series raced at the track every year since 1997; beginning in 2004, a second event at the track was added to the schedule on Labor Day weekend, taking the traditional slot of the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
Heading into the race, Tony Stewart led the Drivers' Championship with 3,410 points, 213 more than Jimmie Johnson in second place and 224 more than third-place Greg Biffle. Rusty Wallace was fourth with 3,139 points and Mark Martin was fifth with 3,014. Jeremy Mayfield, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Ryan Newman, and Jeff Gordon rounded out the top ten positions. Stewart, Johnson, and Biffle had already clinched spots for the ten-race season-ending 2005 Chase for the Nextel Cup, while Wallace simply needed to start the Sony HD 500 to ensure his spot and Martin had to finish no worse than fifth. The respective cars that they drove, owned by Joe Gibbs (Stewart's 20 car), Jeff Gordon (Johnson's No. 48 car), Geoff Smith (Biffle's No. 16 car), Roger Penske (Wallace's No. 2 and Newman's No. 12 cars), Jack Roush (Martin's No. 6 and Edwards' No. 99 cars), Ray Evernham (Mayfield's No. 19 car), Georgetta Roush (Kurt Busch's No. 97 car), and Rick Hendrick (Gordon's No. 24 car), were ordered in the same positions with the same point amounts for the Owners' Championship. Chevrolet led the Manufacturers' Championship with 176 points, followed by Ford (160 points) and Dodge (120 points). Elliott Sadler was the race's defending winner.
After earning his first win of the season in the preceding Sharpie 500, Matt Kenseth hoped to carry his team's positive momentum into the Sony HD 500 with a car that performed well in the races at Michigan International Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway. Stewart, who had finished inside the top-ten in the past ten races, compared California Speedway to Michigan because of their similar layouts: "California is a lot like Michigan. I like to call it Michigan West. I'm not sure that it has the amount of banking that Michigan has, but it is a flatter track than Michigan. The way you approach the weekend is pretty much the same as far as setups on The Home Depot Chevrolet go. You just don't have the banking to help you like you do at Michigan." Sadler revealed that he would be driving the same car that he raced in the Brickyard 400, which he considered his team's best car, and was optimistic in his chance to claim a spot in the Chase for the Nextel Cup. Johnson spoke of his new approach to upcoming races for the Chase: "Last year, we tested too close to race time and weren't able to get the full benefit from the test session. This year, we've got a little better plan and are leaving ourselves some more time to get prepared."
There was one change of driver before the race; NASCAR Busch Series driver J. J. Yeley made his season début in the race, taking Terry Labonte's seat. He expressed confidence ahead of the race because of previous tests that he had completed at Kentucky Speedway and New Hampshire International Speedway. Ricky Rudd was substituted by Jon Wood in the practice and qualifying sessions as he mourned his father, Al Rudd Sr., who died the Tuesday before the race; he arrived in California on Saturday, one day after attending his funeral, to compete in the race. Many cars, including all five from the Roush Racing team, ran with decals commemorating Rudd's father. Evernham Motorsports also entered a third car with 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion Bill Elliott for the first time since the Batman Begins 400 in June as part of a two-race sponsorship deal with McDonald's.
Practice and qualifying
Two practice sessions were held before the Sunday race, one 100-minute session on Friday and another 50-minute session on Saturday. Jeff Gordon was quickest in the first practice session with a lap time of 39.354 seconds; Kurt Busch, Johnson, Martin, and Kenseth rounded out the session's five fastest drivers. On Saturday morning, Gordon bettered his quickest time with a 39.187-second lap in the second practice session. Edwards was second-quickest, Kyle Busch was third, Joe Nemechek was fourth, and Michael Waltrip was fifth.
A total of 45 cars were entered for the qualifying session on Saturday afternoon, but due to NASCAR's qualifying procedure, only 43 were allowed to race. The order of qualifications was set by a random draw earlier that morning. Each driver was required to complete two timed laps to determine the first 42 starting positions, while the driver in 43rd would qualify through the use of a provisional if needed. Edwards took the first pole position of his career with a time of 38.906 seconds and was joined on the grid's front row by Martin, who was 0.048 seconds slower and held the position until Edwards' lap. Kurt Busch was third and Biffle fourth to complete a top-four sweep for Roush Racing; it was the first time in the Nextel Cup Series' modern era (1972–present) that a team qualified in the first four positions. Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Yeley, Brian Vickers, and Scott Riggs completed the top-ten starters. The two drivers that failed to qualify were P. J. Jones and John Andretti, the latter of whom suffered an issue that forced him to miss qualifications. After qualifying, Edwards remained focused on making the Chase: "We still have to deal with two really tough races. In our position with our Office Depot team, I feel like we're so close to being in it or out of it that we're just gonna do our best. If we don't make it, we've got a million reasons why we shouldn't, but if we do it would be just awesome. It would mean the world to me."
Qualifying results Grid Driver Team Manufacturer 1 99 Carl Edwards Roush Racing Ford 38.906 185.061 2 6 Mark Martin Roush Racing Ford 38.954 184.833 3 97 Kurt Busch Roush Racing Ford 39.045 184.403 4 16 Greg Biffle Roush Racing Ford 39.052 184.370 5 48 Jimmie Johnson Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 39.120 184.049 6 24 Jeff Gordon Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 39.166 183.833 7 9 Kasey Kahne Evernham Motorsports Dodge 39.172 183.805 8 11 J. J. Yeley Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet 39.182 183.758 9 25 Brian Vickers Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 39.194 183.702 10 10 Scott Riggs Evernham Motorsports Chevrolet 39.241 183.482 11 32 Bobby Hamilton Jr. PPI Motorsports Chevrolet 39.251 183.435 12 40 Sterling Marlin Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge 39.276 183.318 13 19 Jeremy Mayfield Evernham Motorsports Dodge 39.278 183.309 14 20 Tony Stewart Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet 39.347 182.987 15 38 Elliott Sadler Robert Yates Racing Ford 39.357 182.941 16 31 Jeff Burton Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 39.363 182.913 17 43 Jeff Green Petty Enterprises Dodge 39.400 182.741 18 29 Kevin Harvick Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 39.403 182.727 19 15 Michael Waltrip Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Chevrolet 39.439 182.560 20 45 Kyle Petty Petty Enterprises Dodge 39.443 182.542 21 07 Dave Blaney Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 39.448 182.519 22 01 Joe Nemechek MB2 Motorsports Chevrolet 39.455 182.486 23 17 Matt Kenseth Roush Racing Ford 39.478 182.380 24 7 Robby Gordon Robby Gordon Motorsports Chevrolet 39.499 182.283 25 5 Kyle Busch Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 39.518 182.195 26 36 Boris Said MB/Sutton Motorsports Chevrolet 39.551 182.043 27 22 Scott Wimmer Bill Davis Racing Dodge 39.615 181.749 28 12 Ryan Newman Penske Racing Dodge 39.620 181.726 29 77 Travis Kvapil Penske Racing Dodge 39.702 181.351 30 91 Bill Elliott Evernham Motorsports Dodge 39.729 181.228 31 49 Ken Schrader BAM Racing Dodge 39.748 181.141 32 37 Tony Raines R&J Racing Dodge 39.781 180.991 33 41 Casey Mears Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge 39.807 180.873 34 2 Rusty Wallace Penske Racing Dodge 39.881 180.537 35 51 Stuart Kirby Competitive Edge Motorsports Chevrolet 39.884 180.523 36 66 Mike Garvey Peak Performance Motorsports Ford 39.908 180.415 37 88 Dale Jarrett Robert Yates Racing Ford 39.944 180.252 38 0 Mike Bliss Haas Automation Chevrolet 39.976 180.108 39 21 Jon Wood Wood Brothers Racing Ford 40.041 179.816 40 42 Jamie McMurray Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge 40.057 179.744 41 8 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Chevrolet 40.071 179.681 42 18 Bobby Labonte Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet 40.763 176.631 43 92 Hermie Sadler Front Row Motorsports Dodge 40.798 176.479 Failed to qualify 44 34 P. J. Jones Mach One Motorsports Chevrolet 40.900 176.039 45 4 John Andretti Morgan–McClure Motorsports Chevrolet No time No speed Sources:
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