NASCAR at Texas 2015: Winners and Losers from the AAA Texas 500

“Something good to build on and work on”.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin and Kenseth were eliminated from the Chase after the Talladega race. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with them”.

“Jimmie’s got a win at Texas for all but one day of the week”, Gossage said.

Keselowski’s teammate Joey Logano suffered tire problems at Texas that forced him for the second consecutive race to take his Ford to the garage for repairs that left him laps down to the leader once he returned to the track. “Whatever went on with the adjustments on that last pit stop – and the track getting shade on it and cooling down – really helped my auto and it hurt his vehicle”. “The left-rear tire came apart and shredded everything inside the auto. Overall, really good effort there for the M&M’s Crispy Camry, happy with that and looking forward to having a really good race here”. A wet track cancelled both practice sessions scheduled for Saturday, limiting the time teams could experiment with air pressure.

Instead, Logano won at Kansas, and France complimented the Team Penske driver, calling Logano’s pass quintessential racing.

Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president of racing operations, punctuated the usually mundane session by reminding everyone what is and is not accepted behavior. After being wrecked last week, Logano wrecked very early in this race as he blew a tire at full-speed, which led to him wrecking. NASCAR does not want races to deteriorate into the settling of grudges, O’Donnell said. It was fun. I wish I could have hung with him a little longer, but my right front wheel starting shaking. “That’s not going to change”.

The team sits in the fourth and final Chase cut-off spot with one race to go before the final at Homestead Miami Speedway. “If that happens, one of us could be taking it home, while the other would be going home”. “We just had a good, hard race today”. “Clearly Brad had a lot on the line, but I’m thankful he raced as hard and as clean as he did”. Texas was a golden opportunity for a driver to win a race and punch their ticket to the championship round at Texas. He led a total of 312 out of the 334 laps at Texas Motor Speedway.

That is how the Chase has gone for Harvick. There was the tire rub at Charlotte, running out fuel at New Hampshire, the win at Dover, the Talladega crash and a tire rub at Martinsville.

“We needed to win (Sunday)”, Logano said. “I guess those are character-building moments”. He has 12 points to gain on fourth-place and a transfer spot into the Championship Race, but could have made that moot if he was able to hold off Johnson for four more laps. Only six other drivers have accomplished that feat – Gordon, Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Dan Gurney, Rusty Wallace and Kyle Busch. Busch said he hoped the reaction would be no penalty, as it has been the last couple of times NASCAR has taken splitters.

NASCAR also had Tony Stewart start the race at the back of the field because he missed the prerace driver introductions. Despite the shorter track, we’ll actually run fewer laps than last week’s race at the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway. Jones followed up an impressive qualifying run in the #20 JGR Toyota he’ll drive until Kenseth returns with a respectable12th place finish, capping off another strong weekend for the young driver favored to win the NASCAR Truck Series championship.