Take 5: Texas

Another wild race at Texas Motor Speedway is in the books. Here are five lessons learned from a race that saw some heavyweights exit early, late drama unfold and Kyle Busch earn yet another cowboy hat.

The battle for intermediate track supremacy will have to wait. Kevin Harvick made headlines on Friday, declaring his team 'better than (Martin) Truex' when it comes to 1.5-mile tracks. Truex was the unfortunate recipient of a blown right-front tire early in the race, ending his day. It was instead Harvick battling eventual race winner Kyle Busch to the finish, after the Stewart-Haas Racing driver provided a Herculean effort of overcoming multiple pit-road issues. Harvick was fired up and critical of his team after the race, saying 'We had a pathetic day on pit road.' The 2014 champion has had issues with his crew in the past -- even swapping some out for the NASCAR Playoffs in 2016 -- so this will be something to watch as the season unfolds.

On a late-race pit stop, a tire scurried away from Kevin Harvick's No. 4 pit crew, but a penalty was not called. Harvick went on to compete for the win, eventually finishing runner-up to Kyle Busch. A similar situation earlier in the race for Ryan Blaney's crew did see a penalty called on the No. 12 team, however, and after a post-race review, NASCAR determined a penalty should have been issued to the 4 team. A statement was issued by NASCAR's Senior Vice President of Competition, Scott Miller. 'It was a judgment call, and after conducting a post-race review of the incident an uncontrolled tire penalty for the 4 car would have been correct. We missed that call.'

After Saturday's Xfinity Series race saw a total of eight cautions for 42 laps, Sunday's Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race matched that total, and added six more caution laps, to boot. Tires were going down left and right, and one glance at the bottom of the running order (Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Larson and Truex Jr. were the lowest finishers) would make you think we're living in the upside down. All were victims of wrecks. Teams will need to adjust in some way for the crucial November race deep in the postseason. The track could see another lane open up for that one, as well, as the 'Tire Dragon' that was used ahead of this race to open up the top lane made incremental gains to the recently repaved track and will likely be brought back out for the fall event.

Following his reinvigorating 2017 campaign -- his best in about a decade and a half -- Jamie McMurray stumbled out of the gate to open this season. With no finishes higher than 16th through the first six races (and that one came all the way back in February's Daytona 500), things appeared to be way, way off for the No. 1 team. Sunday's third-place result sure has a way of making his slow start seem like a distant memory. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver has a great shot to keep it rolling at Bristol next week, where he's averaged a finish of 11.14 over the past seven races.

Hendrick Motorsports has six top-10 finishes through seven races in 2018 ... combined. Something just isn't clicking at the perennial powerhouse, and while the young roster (minus Jimmie Johnson) was expected to have some speed bumps in the early going, this is more than concerning. We've often seen the annual 'What's wrong with Jimmie?' headlines spring up around this time before he runs off a string of wins, but it's really hard to see an immediate turnaround coming right now out of any of the four drivers. Johnson has finished in the top 10 just once since a seventh-place finish at Charlotte last October, and has led just 24 laps in that time frame.