Dirty air limits options for those chasing leaders (cont'd)

But McMurray made amends by making sure his tires were up to pressure when the green came out with 10 laps to go.

"When Kevin gave me the outside, I thought that was my only chance," McMurray said. "On the restart we both spun the tires really, really bad. But when I got down to Turn 1, my car had a lot more grip than it did the run before. I don't know if the air pressure built up.

"I worked my tires in really, really hard under the yellow to get the pressure built up. Man, I just had way more grip that last run than I did the run before that."

Like McMurray, Harvick gambled on track position, which put him in position to grab the lead heading into the final restart.

"I just went into [Turn 1] and had to wait on the throttle a really long time because the car started chattering and Jamie just drove around me and it pushed the whole run there," Harvick said. "I felt like we had a top-five car, but didn't have a winning car and we had a chance to win there at the end but just came up a little short."

Tony Stewart also parlayed track position into a fifth-place finish.

"Those last two pit stops were very, very critical in getting us some track position," Stewart said. "We got some breaks there on one of the restarts that got us about three spots, so that got us the best track position we had all day. Those two tires weren't good enough to hold on at the end there, but we were a solid car."

Biffle couldn't really say if he thought he had anything for McMurray, even if he had been able to get by Harvick.

"I don't know because Jamie was about the same speed as Kevin, so I would have had the same issue with Jamie as I would with Kevin," Biffle said. "Four tires are only good for about five laps and then they start falling off and equalizing with the two-tire cars.

"You never know. I could have given him a try, but he was running a lot different line than Kevin was. Kevin was blocking the corner, entering low and really protecting that line. I saw Jamie really arcing it out, so I don't know if Jamie had to run there or he just was because nobody was pushing him. It's possible that we could have got up there and maybe got our nose inside of Jamie."

When the green flew for the final restart, Biffle was fifth and thought he might have a chance.

"My car was really, really fast all day," Biffle said. "I could just cut to the bottom and lay the throttle to it. I was closing on the guys 10 miles an hour faster than they were.

"I just drove by Tony on the short chute and just arced it out into three and to the bottom. The car was just so fast. It took me a few laps to get up to the back of [Harvick] and as you get further to the front the cars are running faster because they have less traffic. When you're back in traffic and the cars are slower, the four tires are way more effective -- at least it seemed like for me."

But in doing so, Biffle used up any advantage he might have had with fresher tires.

"These race cars are hard to pass on this track," Biffle said. "It seemed like the guy that got out front had a big advantage and we needed to be out front. We had a good car. I was way faster than Harvick, but just couldn't get by him."