FONTANA – If you are into demolition derby, or maybe bumper cars, then this weekend’s NASCAR action at the Auto Club Speedway may have been your thing.There was a little bit of racing mixed in with all the bumping and crumpling. There is often more action on Southern California freeways.

The crashes and spinouts that dominated on Saturday continued on Sunday during the running of the WISE Power 400. WISE Power, which became the entitlement sponsor for this race earlier this year, specializes in renewable energy.

NASCAR may be in need of some renewable energy. There were the Gen 6 cares from 2013 to 2021. Now it is Next Gen cars. What does the Gen stand for? Generating mishaps?During Sunday’s race, witnessed by an estimated 70,000 fans, 59 of the 200 laps were run under 12 caution flags.

The only exciting part came at the end of the 400-mile race when Kyle Larson, who went from last to first, took a route on the inside of the race to take the checkered flag.

Austin Dillon was second. Eric Jones, who qualified No. 2, finished third, followed by upstart Daniel Suarez.

Joey Logano, the winner of the Busch Light Clash at the L.A. Coliseum four weeks ago, finished fifth.

Five cars in the field of 36 were not able to finish and eight others were at least one lap down.

“It’s always fun to win here in the home state,” said Elk Grove native Kyle Larson. “There were definitely some guys that were quicker than us, but they had their misfortunes.

“Just kept our heads in it all day — long race. Restarts were crazy. The whole runs were crazy. So definitely wild, but cool to get a win here in California and hope we get on a little streak.”

Among few winners Sunday was Suarez, the only Latino driver in the Cup Series. Suarez, 30, a native of Monterrey, Mexico, has a significant fan club called Daniel’s Amigos. They were plenty excited about their guy’s fourth-place finish.

Suarez came out of the pack and briefly led with three laps to go. He has yet to win a Cup Series race.

“We’re going to win a few races very soon,” he said. “I just can’t thank everyone enough on my team. We had a fast car, but we went through a lot of adversity. We had a few issues. We hit the wall once.”

It seemed just about every car either hit the wall at least once or had some kind of mishap.

The day did not begin very well for Las Vegas’ Busch brothers, but went from disastrous to not so bad.

Kurt Busch, 43, finished eighth after starting in the back of the pack, and Kyle Busch, 36, ended up 14th after early race trouble.

Kurt Busch and his crew failed three pre-qualifying tests on Saturday, resulting in temporarily being placed last in the field. That penalty also required Busch to make a slow pass through the pits on the first lap.

With that behind him, he started to move up. But then came another penalty, this time for exiting pit row too quickly, and back to the back he went. After that, he kept passing cars and avoiding accidents.

“I can’t describe what we went through today with all the adversity, all of the problems – the self-inflicted things, the oddball scenarios,” Busch said, “Wow. What a top-10. That is a statement piece for us at 23XI.”

Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace are the two drivers for the 23XI team, co-owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin. Hamlin, who continues to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing, finished 15th Sunday. On lap 153, Hamlin avoided crashing into William Bryon’s car by inches.

Kyle Busch, who won his first top-level NASCAR race at Fontana in 2005 at the age of 20 and went on to 58 more over the next 16 years, qualified fourth on Saturday despite experiencing transmission problems. But a spinout on lap 15 Sunday put him two laps down and out of contention.

Spinouts and accidents spoiled the day for most of the drivers.

Up-and-comer Tyler Riddick led throughout much of the race and won the first two of the race’s three stages. Then, entering lap 153, Riddick slowed down when Larson’s car had a flat. Reddick then got hit by William Byron’s car, which just missed hitting Hamlin.

Orange County’s Cole Custer, who won Saturday’s Xfinity race in impressive fashion, did double duty over the weekend and, in the WISE Power 400, got as high as fifth before finishing 11th.

Second-place finisher Austin Dillon was one of the few happy campers at the end of the day.

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“We had to make a bunch of adjustments,” he said “We were terrible at the beginning. Just kind of learning the car myself.”

Dillon said communicating with crew chief Justin Alexander was a key to his showing.

“Our pit crew was the story of the day today,” Dillion added. “They were special. And my teammate (Tyler) Reddick – I hate what happened to him.’

Third place finisher Eric Jones said, “It feels good to be interviewed after the race, but it’s frustrating too. You’re that close and you have a car that you feel like can do it. A couple restarts just didn’t go our way. I probably could have done a better job here and there, and it just didn’t add up.

“I just haven’t raced up front a lot in the last year and a half. There are some things I need to be better at. Hopefully, I have a lot of time to work on that. We want to keep running up front and if we keep doing that, we’re going to win some races.”