He did put the rest of the drivers still battling in the Chase for the Sprint Cup on notice. If any of those bottom four manage to win the race, it doesn’t matter what the man on the bubble does. It has been a great race track for us in the past.
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Nobody seems better prepared for the third round of NASCAR’s playoffs than Team Penske, which has led 662 of the last 834 laps raced.
After weeks of controversies and disputes, Texas Motor Speedway provided a few refreshment to racing fans.
Erik Jones completed a 681-lap weekend tripleheader at Texas Motor Speedway by finishing 12th in the Sprint Cup AAA Texas 500.
Johnson bided his time after a restart, survived several block attempts, and took the lead from Keselowski with four laps to go to win at Texas, his 75th Sprint Cup victory. “Just one step short of having the awesome day we needed to have”. I feel like we’re making progress.
That leaves three spots up for grabs at Phoenix, the last race before the November 22 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He’s among a group of drivers the sport is counting on to re-establish its relevance at a time when staples such as Jeff Gordon (at the end of this season) and Tony Stewart (at the end of 2016) are retiring.
Kurt Busch and Joey Logano are seventh and eighth in the standings and so far back they are in a must-win situation heading into Phoenix.
“Felt pretty good, but I would have liked to have had a little bit more”, Gordon said.
Keselowski was rarely challenged until a restart on lap 316 where Martin Truex Jr., who restarted second, raced him hard before Johnson, who restarted third, caught them both.
Keselowski nearly as quickly got back in front, and Johnson also went charging past Truex into second place and right on the leader’s tail.
“You’ve got to go for the win”.
At Chicagoland, the first race of the Chase, Denny Hamlin pulled off the victory, which propelled him into round two. “I did everything I could to hold him off but he was way faster that last run”. “When I came to (Team Penske) in 2010, we didn’t have any, and now we have four in five years, so I’m really proud of that accomplishment”.
“Where we will react is when we see something that goes out of bounds of hard racing”. Once his road to the final was derailed by Kenseth, the Daytona 500 victor has done nothing but focus on the only thing he can control: Trying to win a race.
“We don’t need to win, but we would love to win”. He had won three consecutive races and was leading at Martinsville a week ago when he was wrecked by Kenseth, payback for an incident in an earlier race. NASCAR then suspended Kenseth for two races, and his appeals were denied.
“That’s a nice buzzword”, Johnson said, laughing.
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Keselowski took the lead with 10 laps left after Kyle Larson’s left-rear tire blew. “We led a lot of laps”, he said of his Texas effort. Now, seven drivers will be fighting for three spots next week at Phoenix, as it will be the last chance to earn a spot in the championship round at Homestead. He had two flat tires and had to drive about the final 100 laps with his right hand on the shifter to keep it from popping out of place. “We just kept gouging away and everything worked out in the end”, he said. He was 64 laps back when he returned to the track. “I think that shows a lot about what our race vehicle is going to be like in race trim and just how consistent it was throughout the speed on each round…”
