Burton rallies for a victory

Jeff Burton can only hope that a recent trend at California Speedway continues.

The last two races on the two-mile oval have seen the winner of the NASCAR Busch Series race go on to win the Nextel Cup event the next day.

Driving a Richard Childress Chevrolet, Burton passed Kyle Busch with seven laps left in the 150-lap, $1.5-million Camping World 300 on Saturday.

It was the third Busch victory of the season for Burton, his 25th all-time, breaking a tie for fourth on the career list with Tommy Houston.

There were six cautions, the last setting up a 10-lap shootout in which Busch led Burton, Clint Bowyer and Jimmie Johnson on the restart.

But Burton had tires that were 31 laps fresher than those on Busch’s Chevrolet.

“After that caution, it’s Kyle Busch, it doesn’t matter,” said Burton, who started fifth. “We had much better tires than he did and that made my job easier . . . but by no means was it a gimme.”

Burton, who will clinch a spot in the Nextel Cup Chase when he takes the green flag today, hopes he can repeat what Matt Kenseth did in the spring race at the Fontana track and Kasey Kahne did last fall.

“Tonight’s awesome,” Burton said. “We’ll put our best foot forward and hopefully we can do the same.”

Burton pulled alongside Busch at the start-finish line on Lap 143, and made the pass stick in Turn 4. Denny Hamlin came from fifth place on the restart to finish third, followed by Johnson and Bowyer.

The race was red-flagged on Lap 69 while rookie Brad Keselowski was extricated from owner Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s U.S. Navy Chevrolet after a violent crash in Turn 1.

It began when A.J. Allmendinger -- in his Busch Series debut driving a Dodge for Chip Ganassi -- drifted high and made contact with J.J. Yeley on the fastest portion of the track. It turned Allmendinger sharply toward inside, where he hit Keselowski’s right rear quarter panel. Keselowski shot toward the wall, made head-on contact and went airborne, where his car was hit again by Allmendinger’s. His car a fireball, Keselowski’s right rear tire then rode the top of the wall from the middle of Turn 1 to the middle of Turn 2.

“I thought I was clear and got clipped in the right rear,” said Allmendinger, who started 42nd after an engine change. “I felt so bad for Brad. . . . It was a nasty wreck.”

Keselowski, alert and awake, was airlifted to Loma Linda University Medical Center for evaluation. He was treated and released.

Hamlin, on the pole for a series-best fifth time, was trying to become the first driver to win this race from the No. 1 starting position. He started alongside Kahne, who was coming off a victory last week in Bristol, Tenn.

The top 15 starters in the race were regulars from the Nextel Cup Series, with Australian Marcos Ambrose -- on his 31st birthday -- leading the Busch brigade from the outside of Row 8. Ambrose finished 13th.

Carl Edwards saw his lead drop from 690 points over David Reutimann drop to 654 points over Kevin Harvick. Edwards finished 26th after becoming tangled in a multiple-car crash that set up the final shootout. Harvick was seventh, Reutimann 15th.

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martin.henderson@latimes.com