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
- Jimmie Johnson
- Brad Keselowski
- Kyle Busch
- Matt Kenseth
- Tony Stewart
- Clint Bowyer
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Kurt Busch
- Kevin Harvick
- Greg Biffle
- Joey Logano
- Ryan Newman
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Jeff Gordon
- Aric Almirola
- Carl Edwards
- Sam Hornish Jr.
- Jamie McMurray
- Jeff Burton
- Denny Hamlin
- Casey Mears
- Trevor Bayne
- Travis Kvapil
- Danica Patrick
- Kasey Kahne
- Landon Cassill
- Paul Menard
- David Ragan
- Mark Martin
- Scott Speed
- Ken Schrader
- Marcos Ambrose
- Bobby Labonte
- Juan Montoya
- David Gilliland
- AJ Allmendinger
- Josh Wise *
- Michael McDowell
- Dave Blaney
- Joe Nemechek
- Mike Bliss
- J.J. Yeley
- Reed Sorenson