2010 Auto Club 500

The 2010 Auto Club 500 was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race held on February 21, 2010, at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. Contested over 250 laps, it was the second race of the 2010 Sprint Cup Series season. The race was won by Jimmie Johnson for Hendrick Motorsports. Kevin Harvick finished second and Jeff Burton clinched third.

Polesitter driver Jamie McMurray maintained his lead into the first corner, but outsider Juan Pablo Montoya took the lead before the first lap was over. Afterward, Johnson became the leader, and would eventually lead to the race-high of 101 laps. During the final pit stops, Johnson was on pit lane as the caution flag came out. Burton, who led the race during Johnson's pit stop, did not pass Johnson to put him a lap down. Therefore, Johnson retained the first position upon the completion of pit stops. On the final lap, Harvick was gaining on Johnson, but Johnson maintained his position to win his first race of the season.

There were six caution flags and 28 lead changes among 14 different drivers throughout the course of the race. The result moved Johnson up 23 spots to tenth in the Drivers' Championship, 78 points behind of leader Kevin Harvick and one ahead of Kyle Busch. Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship, eight points ahead of Toyota and nine ahead of Ford, with 34 races remaining in the season.

Auto Club Speedway (previously California Speedway) was a superspeedway located in Fontana, California which hosted NASCAR racing annually from 1997 to 2023. The standard track at Auto Club Speedway featured four turns and was 2 miles (3.2 km) long. The track's turns were banked at fourteen degrees, while the front stretch, the location of the finish line, was banked at eleven degrees. The back stretch had 3 degrees of banking.

Before the race, Jamie McMurray led the Drivers' Championship with 190 points, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. stood in second with 175 points. Greg Biffle was third in the Drivers' Championship with 170 points, Clint Bowyer was fourth with 165 points, and Kevin Harvick was in fifth with 156 points. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Chevrolet was leading with nine points, three points ahead of their rival Ford. Toyota, with four points, was one point ahead of Dodge in the battle for third.

Three practice sessions were held before the Sunday race—one on Friday, and two on Saturday. In the first practice session, the fastest drivers were Mark Martin, Ryan Newman, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jeff Burton, and Clint Bowyer. During the second practice session, Jimmie Johnson, Martin, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, and Greg Biffle had the quickest times. Martin, Bowyer, Johnson, McMurray, and Jeff Gordon led the final practice session.

During qualifying, forty-six cars were entered, but only forty-three were able to race because of NASCAR's qualifying procedure. Jamie McMurray clinched the pole position with a best lap time of 39.185 seconds. He was joined on the front row of the grid by Montoya. Bowyer qualified third, Kasey Kahne took fourth, and Dave Blaney started fifth. Casey Mears, Johnny Sauter, and Terry Cook were the three drivers who failed to qualify.

The race, the second out of a total of thirty-six in the season, began at 3 p.m. EST and was televised live in the United States on Fox. Pre-race ceremonies began with Motor Racing Outreach's Jeff Hamilton giving the invocation; then Katharine McPhee, season five American Idol runner-up turned RCA Records recording artist, performed the national anthem. Actor Andy García gave the traditional command, "Gentlemen Start Your Engines!" Before the race, Denny Hamlin moved to the back of the starting grid because his team changed engines after his qualifying run. At 3:19 p.m. EST, polesitter Jamie McMurray led the 43-car field to the green flag, but his lead was short-lived. Juan Pablo Montoya passed him during the first lap to lead lap 1. On lap 29, Jimmie Johnson passed Montoya for the lead. Between laps 35 to 40 teams made green flag pit stops (a pit stop while high speed racing continues). Dave Blaney stayed out to lead before parking his car on lap 44, allowing Johnson to regain the lead.