Auto Club 400 could yield yet another different winner this season

NASCAR returns to Southern California this weekend with a streak of parity among its winning drivers this season.

Different Sprint Cup drivers have won the series’ first four races as the sport makes its annual visit to Auto Club Speedway, a sweeping two-mile oval in Fontana.

Matt Kenseth won this year’s Daytona 500, Denny Hamlin won in Phoenix, reigning Cup champion Tony Stewart won the Las Vegas race and Brad Keselowski won in Bristol, Tenn.

And Sunday’s Auto Club 400 could yield a fifth winner because five-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson is a perennial favorite in Fontana.

Johnson is the only five-time winner at Auto Club Speedway and holds the record for top-five finishes with 12.

“We got our first Sprint Cup career win there in ‘02, so it’s a special track to me,” Johnson said.

Johnson will try to give team owner Rick Hendrick his 200th Cup victory; Hendrick Motorsports has been shut out of Victory Lane this season.

Hendrick’s other Chevrolet drivers are four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon, who’s also a three-time winner at Fontana, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne.

Johnson got a boost this week when penalties levied against him and his crew chief, Chad Knaus, were reversed by a NASCAR appeals officer. The penalties came after NASCAR inspectors had ruled there were irregularities with the body work on Johnson’s No. 48 Chevy before the Daytona 500.

But the Hendrick drivers will have their hands full with Kenseth and his teammates Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards of Roush Fenway Racing, along with Kevin Harvick of Richard Childress Racing.

Kenseth also is a three-time winner in Fontana, Biffle and Edwards have been winners there, and Harvick won the race a year ago when he swept past Johnson on the final lap. Biffle also leads the current Cup standings with a nine-point advantage over second-place Harvick.

The Cup drivers will practice and qualify Friday to set the 43-car field.

On Saturday, NASCAR’s second-level Nationwide Series holds the Royal Purple 300 and drivers include current points leader Elliott Sadler and Danica Patrick.

james.peltz@latimes.com