(Fontana, Calif.) – It was over almost before it even began for NAPA AUTO PARTS driver Michael Waltrip at California Speedway. At the drop of the green flag to start the Auto Club 500, Waltrip’s engine dropped to seven cylinders due to a bad spark plug. The lack of horsepower put the No. 55 NAPA car several laps down and out of contention. He finished the race in the 36th position.

It certainly wasn’t the week that the NAPA team had hoped for out west. In the first practice of the weekend, the NAPA Dodge spun in turn two after leaving pit road. The right front and right rear made contact with the wall and the Waltrip-Jasper Racing team feared they would have to pull out a back-up car. But the No. 55 crew managed to make repairs and soon the “double nickel” was ready for qualifying.

In qualifying, Waltrip did the best he could in his first laps back on the track after the crash. He posted the 33rd fastest time of the day at 39.462 seconds and an average speed of 182.454 mph. Kurt Busch won the Bud Pole with a lap of 38.485 seconds and a speed of 187.086 mph.

The bad spark plug at the opening of the race hampered the NAPA Dodge for the first 87 laps. After the second caution of the day for debris, Waltrip brought his No. 55 down pit road for service and the crew changed all eight spark plugs in hopes of getting his Bill Davis prepared engine back to full song. It worked and soon Waltrip was clicking off lap times as fast as the cars in the top-five. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. The NAPA team could not make up all the laps they were down and finished 36th. The two best cars of the day, Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle, both had motor failures which ended their day. Their misfortune allowed Matt Kenseth to win the Auto Clun 500. Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards rounded out the top-three.

“They said go and something that is relatively important for the engine to run properly wasn’t attached or it broke,” said Waltrip. “We lost three or four laps and then just struggled trying to work on the car and learn things. We started last with about 50 laps to go and got all the way up into the middle. We weren’t the slowest car. We just had problems here today, unfortunately.”

Next week the NAPA team has the weekend off to regroup for the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. However, Waltrip will head south of the border to race his No. 99 Busch Series car in Mexico City, Mexico. The race can been seen on next Sunday on FOX and heard on MRN Radio and XM channel 144 at 3 p.m. ET. Check local listings for exact times for your area.