Dale Earnhardt Jr. struggles again

Another year, another poor finish for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Auto Club Speedway.

The most popular driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series had hoped to reverse his record at the Fontana track Sunday after his second-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500.

But after starting 27th on the 43-car grid for the Auto Club 500 and climbing to 21st early in the race, Earnhardt was penalized for speeding on pit road, dropping him deep into the field.

His problems mounted when his No. 88 Chevrolet later had what appeared to be problems with its rear axle, briefly forcing him to the garage.

Earnhardt finished 32nd and, in 17 races at Auto Club Speedway, still has no wins and only three top-five finishes.

“It was a tough day,” Earnhardt said. “We tore up an axle or a drive plate. Down in the center of [Turns] 1 and 2, I just got back to the gas and the car felt like it had a flat tire.”

Asked about enduring yet another difficult day in California, he replied, “Well, what can you do? You just go on home.”

Then he’ll be in the next Cup race Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Defending winner

Matt Kenseth, who won the Auto Club 500 a year ago and then went into a tailspin, appeared to be making another of his patented rallies from the back of the field before coming up short. He finished seventh after starting 20th.

Kenseth won the Daytona 500 and the Fontana race a year ago but hasn’t won since, as he and other drivers on the Roush Fenway Racing team struggled to stay competitive during the rest of the 2009 season.

But this year, “I feel like we made some improvement on our cars over the winter,” said Kenseth, who finished eighth at this year’s Daytona 500.

“I’m feeling great as far as the two finishes that we’ve had,” he said, while acknowledging that “it sounds dumb me saying that since we won the first two [races] last year.”

Teammate Greg Biffle, who finished 10th on Sunday, agreed. “We’ve got a ways to go, but we’re getting closer,” he said.

Fontana crowd

Attendance at Sunday’s race again was well below the 92,000-seat capacity of Auto Club Speedway and again track President Gillian Zucker expressed satisfaction with the turnout.

Although the speedway doesn’t disclose figures, NASCAR estimated the crowd at 72,000, compared with its estimate of 78,000 for the race a year ago, but the actual attendance appeared to be well shy of that figure.

“The [expected] crowd going into the weekend was about flat and I think that’s probably about where we’re going to end up, year over year, which given the condition of the economy in this part of the country is saying something,” Zucker said.

She defended the track having two Cup races per year despite speculation by some NASCAR observers that, if Fontana can’t sell out, one of its races might eventually be moved elsewhere.

“This market is very important to NASCAR,” Zucker said. “This is the largest media market to host a live NASCAR event and that’s important to sponsors, it’s important to the race teams.”

The track also has been criticized at times for lackluster racing, and NASCAR recently approved the speedway’s plan to shorten its fall race to 400 miles from 500 in hopes of fostering closer competition.

Asked whether the track might consider the same move for the February race, Zucker replied, “If they put on this great show at 400 miles in October then, sure, why not?”

james.peltz@latimes.com