Jimmie Johnson wins at Texas Motor Speedway, full race results


A grid of 43 drivers set out racing on the 1.5 mile Texas Motor Speedway for the AAA Texas 500 today, but only one of them earned the right to victory lane at the end of the 334 laps.

Jimmie Johnson was on the pole for the second week in the row, starting the race 2 points ahead of Brad Keselowski for the points lead.

Johnson led 168 of the 334 laps. He was never lower than eight place.  Johnson took the lead from Keselowski with two laps to go and soared to win his fifth victory of 2012… it was the second week in a row that he had won from the pole. He now has a 7 point lead over Keselowski. Clint Bowyer is 36 points behind in third.

It was the 700th win for Chevrolet.

Lap 321, Kasey Kahne wrecked his No.5 Hendrick Cars Chevrolet bringing out a caution which prompted what people thought would be the last restart of the race.

Johnson and Keselowski battled for a lap and a half on the restart before Keselowski took the lead. Moments later on lap 329 Mark Martin and Carl Edwards got together causing Martin to spin on the front stretch bringing about yet another caution.

“It was an awesome race,” Johnson said after the race. “The gloves are off, and it’s bare-knuckle fighting. I have a lot of respect for that 2 team, those guys are doing a great job. Today I think our cars were pretty equal throughout the course of the race. At the end of the race we were on four (tires) and had to take advantage of it.

“That second-to-last restart was pretty sketchy a couple of times, how close we were and how hard we were racing.”

The biggest mover in the point standings was Matt Kenseth who moved up to fifth following a fourth place finish. Greg Biffle, who won at Texas earlier this year finished in 10th position.

A.J Allmendinger, in his last start of 2012 for Phoenix Racing in the No.51 wrecked and finished the race in 36th.

Kyle Busch during the post race press conference said of the last two restarts, “I guess there are no restart rules. Brad went early the last two times, you’re suppose to go within the zone.”

photo credit: Getty Images

Full Race Results

  1. Jimmie Johnson
  2. Brad Keselowski
  3. Kyle Busch
  4. Matt Kenseth
  5. Tony Stewart
  6. Clint Bowyer
  7. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
  8. Kurt Busch
  9. Kevin Harvick
  10. Greg Biffle
  11. Joey Logano
  12. Ryan Newman
  13. Martin Truex Jr.
  14. Jeff Gordon
  15. Aric Almirola
  16. Carl Edwards
  17. Sam Hornish Jr.
  18. Jamie McMurray
  19. Jeff Burton
  20. Denny Hamlin
  21. Casey Mears
  22. Trevor Bayne
  23. Travis Kvapil
  24. Danica Patrick
  25. Kasey Kahne
  26. Landon Cassill
  27. Paul Menard
  28. David Ragan
  29. Mark Martin
  30. Scott Speed
  31. Ken Schrader
  32. Marcos Ambrose
  33. Bobby Labonte
  34. Juan Montoya
  35. David Gilliland
  36. AJ Allmendinger
  37. Josh Wise *
  38. Michael McDowell
  39. Dave Blaney
  40. Joe Nemechek
  41. Mike Bliss
  42. J.J. Yeley
  43. Reed Sorenson

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