Matt Sayles / AP

Matt Kenseth celebrates after wining the Auto Club 500 on Sunday.

Defending Cup champion Johnson, who finished 39th at Daytona, also bounced back with a third-place finish Sunday, followed by Burton, Mark Martin, Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch.

Johnson’s Chevrolet was in the lead, with Kenseth’s Ford close behind, when debris on the backstretch brought out a caution flag on lap 226 — the first yellow flag since the track went green on lap 126.

All the leaders pitted on the next lap and Johnson agonized through a slow stop, falling all the way to fifth.

“That’s all I had,” Johnson said. “We had a bad pit stop and we just ran out of time.”

Gordon said he was just lucky to finish second.

“If Kevin hadn’t had that flat tire, we would have probably finished third or fourth,” he said. “It’s crazy the way things happen. Last week, he wins the Daytona 500 and, this week, he has that flat tire. It’s too bad.”

Martin, who lost to Harvick at Daytona by the length of a hood, had another good race and put himself and his new team, Ginn Racing — Formerly MB2 Motorsports — into the series points lead. It’s the first time leading the points for the team, now in its 11th year.

It also was a good day for Brian Vickers, who gave Team Red Bull its first top 10 finish in the first race the new Toyota team has been able to qualify for.

The race was the debut for unleaded fuel in NASCAR’s premier series. Several entries blew engines, including DEI teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr. and Evernham Motorsports’ Kasey Kahne, but the teams said they would need to examine the engines closely to determine if the fuel had anything to do with the problems.

“We were happy to bring the car home with that new unleaded fuel and now we’re all anxious to see what the inside of that engine looks like,” Gordon said.