Brad Keselowski comes up just short at Texas

The first half of the race was sloppy for all of the drivers. The only thing missing that would sour more fans was fuel mileage.

It is the last race for drivers to make the final four in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Instead, that didn’t happen even though it looked for most of the day like Brad Keselowski was going to win the race and earn his way to the championship round.

After finishing second in the July race at Daytona worldwide Speedway, Johnson didn’t lead a lap for 12 races – producing just one top five and six top-10s in that span. His spring performance had already assured his postseason presence, but problems persisted.

It was classic Johnson and for Keselowski it was nearly surely the final nail in the coffin in what will be his and Logano’s 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. That move was in retaliation for Logano’s bump-and-win pass of race leader Kenseth at Kansas Speedway, which caused Kenseth to spin out and miss an opportunity to advance to this round of the Chase.

Kevin Harvick knows how to win in pressure situations.

“I was given two ponies by Texas Motor Speedway as a retirement gift”, Gordon said. “We definitely have a very excited 600-plus employees back in Charlotte”. “Thank you, buddy. I don’t know how to even answer that”.

“There’s always something you can do better”.

Despite the visible disappointment, Keselowski took his disappointment in stride. Truex fell to eighth but attributed that to a loose right-front wheel rather than any contact with Keselowski. He said he thought he came up. Good hard racing-rubbing a little. “It’s hard racing.’ It’s racing for the win there”. Though the victory is a small bit of gratification, Johnson said it was good for the team as a whole, both the pit crew and the ones at the race shop in North Carolina.

“Clearly he was watching and bored at home”, Johnson said, when asked about Kenseth’s tweet.

“What’s gone on between other drivers the last few weeks has no bearing on myself”. Throughout this stuff are guys they’re really good job.

“We have just been focused on winning races and helping our teammates advance through the rounds”.

Johnson’s win at Texas is his fourth of 2015.

Kyle Busch is second behind retiring four-time champion Jeff Gordon, Johnson’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports and the only driver locked to race for the title. Sunday at Texas he showed the eight remaining eligible Chase drivers that he may still have a say in who eventually is crowned the season’s champion. Carl Edwards, Keselowski, Kurt Busch, and Logano have to go into Phoenix with one goal: a win. We led a lot of laps and a lot to be proud of and came up one spot short. The first is just a week away, and if you’re inclined to get excited about NASCAR, it’s time to get excited.

“It’s unfortunate for Brad”. “I raised the track bar on that last run and the race vehicle got tight on me”, he explained. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with them”. We have a fourth team that we started, we’ve never worked together, and here we are with a shot at this, and we have fast cars and need to keep working on that.

“Yeah, it does”, Busch said during the NBC broadcast with a wise-looking smile.

Kenseth was absent serving the first of his two-race suspension from NASCAR after his appeals were denied.

NASCAR could still have “boys have at it” in the future.

“It just blew apart off of turn two”, Logano said. Or at least sanity.

“I did everything I could to hold him off”, Keselowski said of Johnson.