Johnson leads Chase after win at Texas
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Jimmie Johnson took a giant step toward his sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup championship by dominating Sunday's AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Johnson led 255 of the 334 laps to win his sixth race of the season and his first on a 1 1/2-mile track this season.
Johnson now leads Matt Kenseth by seven points with only two races left in the season.
Kenseth had to battle back from a pit-road speeding penalty on lap 173 to finish fourth behind Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Joey Logano.
The only problem Johnson had all afternoon came on lap 240 when his pit crew had trouble with the right-front tire. The long pit stop dropped Johnson to fifth.
But 16 laps, he regained the lead and stayed in front the rest of the way.
Asked how he would describe his performance -- incredible, spectacular, impressive? -- he smiled and replied, "It was all of that. We came here and tested and did an awesome job of understanding when I needed in the car and what was going to create speed.
"Obviously, we had a lot of speed in the car and we needed to win because Matt is there in the top five.
"Just a dominant day for this Lowe's team. This was an awesome, awesome race car. And we needed it. Matt didn't have his best day and he finished fourth. It's just hard to gain points in this championship battle, and we got a couple today.
"This thing is going to do down to the last lap at Homestead, and it is going to come down to mistakes. I'm very excited about our performance and what we did here. We'll enjoy this, but there is still two weeks of very hard racing ahead of us."
Kasey Kahne finished fifth, followed by Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Ryan Newman.
Kyle Busch was running third when he made his final pit stop on lap 298. But he, too, was charged with speeding on pit road. As a result, he ended the 500-mile race in 13th place to severely damage his championship aspirations. Busch is now fourth in the standings but trails Johnson by 52 points.
Harvick moved into third place, 40 points back.
Earnhardt, who moved up two spots in the standings to fifth, 62 points out of first, thought his run was also due to the test the Hendrick Motorsports teams had last week at Texas.
"It paid off," Earnhardt said. "The track conditions that we tested in were similar to how the race ended, so I think that was in our favor. Just real pleased with being able to run so well.
"The 48 was in another class and nobody had anything for him. He was just super good all through practice and in the race."
Earnhardt was quick to praise Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew chief.
"Chad's done a good job of putting the right people in the right place," Earnhardt said. "You've got to give Chad a lot of credit for maintaining the consistency of the group and keeping the performance of the car and the equipment there for Jimmie throughout the process (of running for the championship)."
Logano said, "I thought I was a second or third place all night. I tried my heart out trying to catch and pass him (Earnhardt), but we got a little too tight and couldn't get to him. Overall, we can't be disappointed with a third-place finish, but the 48 (Johnson) was just ridiculously fast."
Kenseth agreed that the "48 was in a class by himself. We just weren't fast enough the last couple of runs to move up (in the final rundown). We were running second when they (NASCAR) said I speeded."
Kenseth was 16th after serving his pass-thru penalty, the last car on the lead lap. But he got a lucky break 15 laps later when the yellow flag came out for oil from Carl Edwards' blown engine.
The caution flag allowed him to close to the back of the cars in front of him and by lap 200 Kenseth had moved into the top 10. And he slowly edged his way back into the top five.
"We were never as good as we were before the penalty," Kenseth said. "But we're still only seven back and I feel good about the last two races."
Jeff Gordon began the day in third place in the standings, 27 points behind Johnson and Kenseth, who were tied for the top spot. But Gordon's championship hopes were wiped out on lap 73 when a left-front tire went flat, sending him hard into the wall. Gordon finished 38th.
"Our car didn't take off very good, but, boy, was it strong on the long run," Gordon said. "We had a really, really good car. This is definitely going to hurt."
Gordon dropped into a tie for sixth with Bowyer, 69 points behind Johnson.
Edwards, the pole-sitter, was second in laps led with 38 but had his hopes erased on lap 188 when he suffered engine failure. He finished 37th.
"We had such a great weekend going," Edwards said. "The car, during the middle part of the race, we were struggling. But we were starting to get it worked out. We will just go on to Phoenix and Homestead and hopefully get a couple of wins. We gotta get in the top 10 so we can go to (Las) Vegas (for the championship banquet)."
Edwards dropped one spot to 11th in the standings.
