Late pass gives Jimmie Johnson win at Texas Motor Speedway

Brad Keselowski, Kurt Busch and Joey Logano have the most work cut out for them on Sunday at PIR. The young man had everybody covered.

Logano had won three consecutive Chase races before the disastrous confrontation at Martinsville with Matt Kenseth and Keselowski looked poised to follow his teammate into Victory Lane at Texas where he led an unbelievable 312 of 334 laps. Then all of sudden comes that rhinestone cowboy, Jimmie Johnson. However, the race’s final caution gave him a chance to get back on equal tires with the rest of the field. “We just had a good, hard race today”. It was his fifth win this year. Even though he no longer had the opportunity to run for the championship, he still had the opportunity with every remaining green flag that was left in the Chase to add to his season win total.

Last week, in my opening column, I said I was going to start my team with Keselowski’s teammate, Joey Logano. And sorry for no controversy of drivers manipulating the Chase nor making moves that one had to wonder whether were intentional or unintentional. He got real loose off of Turn 2 and I had a big run down the backstretch and drove it in really far into Turn 3 hoping to hear clear. “I know the pain, but not at that magnitude”, Busch said.

Johnson won the AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway Sunday afternoon.

The driver with the most impressive resume in the Arizona desert happens to be third in the standings – and the reigning series champion.

“I don’t know what (quintessential) means, I wasn’t very good in high school”, Kenseth said. The man is all but unbeatable at Phoenix. Johnson led just six laps but denied the eight remaining contenders in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs an automatic berth among the championship-eligible quartet. Let’s see how Sprint Cup teams beat the heat in Phoenix on Sunday. If any of those bottom four manage to win the race, it doesn’t matter what the man on the bubble does. We led a lot of laps and a lot to be proud of and came up one spot short. Camping World Truck Series points leader Erik Jones took over in Kenseth’s No. 22 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, and the 19-year-old finished 12th. I’m not sure if the sensation I felt, flying through a corridor of Christmas lights, is exactly what it feels like on any given night race for my lookalike as he whips around the track under the spotlights, but it’s unlike any other experience I’ve encountered. He is third in the Sprint Cup points standings. Instead of getting a victory that would have locked him into the Championship Round at Homestead, Keselowski finished second.

I asked Jeff what he was going to do with them and he said his Mom and step-father John Bickford seemed pretty fond of them, so maybe they would take them and there would be a place to keep them. Jeff’s gotten a few unique farewell gifts along the way this year, but those two ponies go to the head of the list in my book! “But overall, my GoDaddy team did a great job of improving the auto from practice to qualifying today and we were able to get a really good starting spot for Sunday’s race”.

Keselowski’s dominant day ended with a second place finish but he is sixth in the points and now finds himself 19 points behind the fourth-place Martin Truex Jr.