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Logano’s strong run at Texas helps him move up in the standings

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returned to a 1.5-mile track for the first time in three weeks with Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway.

The intermediate track provided a great run for Joey Logano, who finished third in the race. He also moved up in the point standings.

Denny Hamlin also had a strong run to score his third top-10 finish in the past four races.

A roundup of the Coca-Cola Racing Family drivers in order of how they finished at Texas:

Joey Logano (No. 22)

Penske Racing, Ford

Recap: It was a strong run for Logano at Texas. The 23-year-old spent nearly the entire race in the top 10 and spent most of the final 100 laps in the top five. Logano, who started 12th, also was credited with leading Lap 299. Logano would finish the race in third place, which was not only his best career finish at Texas, but also his second top-three finish of this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Quotable: "There were times in practice I thought we were one of the fastest cars here and some time in practice I thought we were a 10-15th place car. We went through our notes and made sure we understood all the changes and put together a fast race car today. From the start of the race we started moving our way forward and I thought I was a second or third place car all night."
His standing: Logano is ninth in the standings with 2,251 points.
Outlook: Logano has only raced nine times at Phoenix International Raceway. In those nine opportunities, Logano has not claimed a win, but he earned a top-five finish once in 2010.

Denny Hamlin (No. 11)

Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota 

Recap: With a seventh-place finish at Texas, Hamlin continued his strong racing over the final weeks of the season. Hamlin spent much of the race running in the top 15 and by Lap 260, had made his way into the top 10. After slipping back to 13th place on Lap 300, Hamlin made a late charge to finish seventh. This was Hamlin’s third top-10 finish in the past four races.
Quotable: Hamlin was unavailable for comment.
His standing: Hamlin is 23rd in the standings with 689 points.
Outlook: Hamlin has fared well at Phoenix in 16 career races at the track. He won there in March of 2012 and has posted eight top-five finishes there. His last three runs at Phoenix have resulted in a win, a second-place finish and a third-place finish.

Ryan Newman (No. 39)

Stewart-Haas Racing, Chevrolet 

Recap: Newman spent much of the race in the top 20, with his position peaking on Laps 240 and 241, when he held the lead. Newman battled a loose handling race car over the course of the afternoon, but was able to pilot his No. 39 Outback Steakhouse Chevrolet to a ninth-place finish. That was his fifth top-10 finish in the Chase. Despite the top-10 finish at Texas, Newman has been mathematically eliminated from winning the Sprint Cup championship this season.
Quotable: "We fought with the handling of our Outback Steakhouse Chevy all day, but Matt (Borland, crew chief) and the team worked on it every stop, and it had gotten better. We just couldn’t get it to where I needed it to be. But in spite of how much we struggled today, to finish ninth was good. We’ll certainly take that after the day we had."
His standing: Newman is 12th in the standings with 2,224 points.
Outlook: In Newman’s 22 races at Phoenix, he’s seen Victory Lane once — in 2010. As for other personal marks, he has claimed eight top-fives, eight top-10s and four poles there. When Newman visited Phoenix earlier this year, he finished 40th and completed only 137 laps due to a crash.

Greg Biffle (No. 16)

Roush Fenway Racing, Ford 

Recap: At a place where he has two wins, Biffle had a bit of a strange day at Texas on Sunday. He ran consistently in the top 20 and was credited with leading Lap 300. However, it just seemed like the Biff was having a hard time making his way through the field over the course of the race. He finished 12th in the AAA Texas 500.
Quotable: "That was a tough one. The car wasn’t very good in traffic and it seemed like we missed maybe the front gaps a little bit on the start. We didn’t get it until it seemed like about 20 to go or 30 or 50 or whatever that last stop was. I don’t know. We just weren’t where we wanted to be. It was a tough day."
His standing: Biffle is eighth in the standings with 2,269 points.
Outlook: Although Biffle has no wins at Phoenix in his 19 races there, he does have five top-fives and seven top-10 finishes under his belt. Perhaps a return to the desert will bring out another memorable finish for Biffle.

Danica Patrick (No. 10)

Stewart-Haas Racing, Chevrolet 

Recap: It was a tough day at Texas for Patrick, who was consistently running in the back half of the field. Her car was too loose early and then when the temperatures cooled off, her car began handling too tight. The end result was a 25th-place finish that saw Patrick end the race three laps down. She did gain three spots in the standings, though.
Quotable: "We were loose early on, but then as it got cooler, it definitely tightened up. I’m proud of how hard everyone worked all weekend and throughout the race. Everyone kept their head up and worked hard to get it better."
Her standing: Patrick is 25th in the standings with 611 points.
Outlook: With two starts at Phoenix, Patrick’s average starting position is 38.5 and average finish of 28.0, with one DNF earlier this season due to a crash on Lap 184. In order for Patrick to better her finishing position, she needs to make an impact in her qualifying run in ensure she starts out on the right foot.

Tony Stewart (No. 14)

Stewart-Haas Racing, Chevrolet 

Recap: Stewart missed his 13th consecutive race this past weekend and watched Mark Martin pilot his No. 14 Chevrolet to a 11th-place finish. Stewart is still nursing his broken leg and won’t return in 2013.
His standing: Stewart is 29th in the standings with 594 points.

Posted on by Holly Cain

Seven points separate veterans with championship in balance

RELATED: Full race results | Updated standings | Chase coverage

FORT WORTH, Texas — Matt Kenseth was all smiles Sunday evening when he climbed out of his No. 20 Home Depot Toyota on Texas Motor Speedway‘s pit road despite losing seven points in the NASCAR championship to Jimmie Johnson, who was celebrating in Victory Lane 30 yards away.

Johnson turned in a dominating performance on the track’s high-banked oval, leading 255 of the 334 laps to win his second straight AAA Texas 500, while Kenseth rallied to a fourth-place finish, overcoming a mid-race pit road speeding penalty.

Seven points between them, with two races remaining to settle the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, keeps everything really, really interesting as far as these guys are concerned.

"I’m still confident; I wish I was seven points ahead, but still, at the end of the day, it’s in our hands," Kenseth said. "If you win both of the last two races, the math works out where we still win it (all)."

"I think I’ve got the greatest race team out there and we’re going to go there and work as hard as we can and see where it ends up.

"We’re right in it. As good as my team is, if we can hit everything right, we can have days like he (Johnson) had today," Kenseth continued. "We’ve had them this year. I still feel good. I’m confident and looking forward to getting to Phoenix."

And even after hoisting the weekend’s trophy, Johnson wasn’t ready to assume anything. He left Texas seven points up on Brad Keselowski last year and lost the championship.

"I hope history doesn’t repeat itself," said a smiling Johnson, whose crew chief Chad Knaus characterized Kenseth as a "more formidable" opponent.

"That (last season) is the perfect example of this thing isn’t over until it’s over. Last year we had eight great races and two bad ones and didn’t get the championship. Very important to finish strong. There are two very important races left."

"I have been watching a lot of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighting lately, and you’ll fall into a rhythm and think that somebody has got the fight won, and it doesn’t end that way," Johnson cautioned. "That’s how this is going to be. Matt didn’t have maybe the best day and still finished fourth. This thing is going to go to the last lap at Homestead, and it is going to come down to mistakes.

"I’m very excited about our performance and what we did here. We’ll enjoy this, but there is still two weeks of very hard racing ahead of us."

While the title drama and suspense remains for the Johnson and Kenseth duel, the contenders have separated themselves from the rest of the field.

Jeff Gordon, who was the pair’s closest challenger coming into Texas, dropped three positions in the standings after a blown tire early in the race relegated him to a 38th-place finish.

Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch are ranked third and fourth but trail Johnson by 40 and 52 points, respectively. Carl Edwards, Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne were mathematically eliminated Sunday.

And so it appears the title will most likely be settled between Johnson and Kenseth in what should be a compelling story line of high competition among former series champions. In the eight weeks of Chase competition, they have kept each other honest and been around one another on the starting grid as well as in the results. Every day has seemed a good day for these two, each of whom has stepped up his game and forced the other to, as well.

"Through all the years I’ve raced against them, I’ve never seen them bad anywhere,’" Kenseth said of the five-time champ’s No. 48 team. "You know they are going to have their A-game every week, and I think we have pretty much every week, too.

"We weren’t going to beat them on speed tonight no matter what. We were just a little off and they were just extremely on. If we had hit all our adjustments perfect tonight and I would have done a better job we might have run second. That’s still a good job, though."

And while the number of contenders may be shrinking, the intensity of the competition has not. Anyone involved with either Kenseth, the 2003 Cup champ, or Johnson, who won a historic five straight titles from 2006-2010, would expect it to be this way.

"I don’t know how it could get any harder than it is right now," Johnson’s team owner Rick Hendrick joked after the race. "It’s nerves and it’s not going to end. I think it’s going to be the last lap at Homestead. This is just going to be a dogfight there. The teams are that close."

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Kevin Harvick won the 2013 edition of the race

RELATED: Full Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage

The field for the 2014 edition of The Sprint Unlimited at Daytona International Speedway is taking shape with 20 Sprint Cup Series drivers earning starting positions for the race.

The season’s first event, The Sprint Unlimited, is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 15. FOX Sports One will televise the 75-lap, non-points event that serves as the kick off to the stock car portion of Budweiser Speedweeks.

The field for The Sprint Unlimited consists of the pole winners for all the 2013 Sprint Cup season events as well as the past winners of the race (who have also attempted to qualify for at least one Cup race during the past season).

The 20 drivers that have qualified for the race include 10 of the 13 drivers in this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

The drivers who have qualified for the 2014 edition of The Sprint Unlimited by virtue of winning a Coors Light Pole Award are: Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Marcos Ambrose, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Mark Martin, Jamie McMurray, Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

As past winners of the event, Terry Labonte, Ken Schrader and Tony Stewart have qualified for the race.

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Buescher, Dillon have not fared well at Phoenix

The so-far unsinkable Matt Crafton takes his road show to the desert this weekend with a sizable 46-point lead in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series standings.
 
His rivals might have a snowball’s chance in the Sahara of gaining ground on the series leader at Phoenix International Raceway, but plenty can happen with two races left that could either seal Crafton’s coronation or ensure that the 2013 championship fight goes down to the wire.

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If he can build his lead to a 49-point cushion in Friday night’s Lucas Oil 150 (8 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1), Crafton will register an early clinching of his first series title in his 13th full year of truck competition. But he’ll have to do it at a relatively flat, one-mile track where he has just three top-five finishes (his best, a third-place effort in 2004) and has yet to lead a lap in his career.
 
Neither of his closest competitors, however, has inspiring Phoenix performances or experience on their side.
 
Defending series champion James Buescher (46 points back) hasn’t achieved a top-10 finish in three career starts at the Arizona track, and bowed from victory contention last season with right-front damage that left him settling for 17th place.
 
Ty Dillon — last weekend’s winner at Texas Motor Speedway — sits third in the standings, 47 points behind Crafton. In his only truck series start at Phoenix, however, Dillon limped to a 15th-place finish last year with similar damage.
 
According to the preliminary entry list, Sprint Cup Series regular Travis Kvapil, the 2003 truck series champ, is set to drive the Pam Sieg-owned No. 93 Chevy. This will be Kvapil’s first truck series start of the season.

Cale Gale, who edged Kyle Busch in a fender-clanging duel in the 2012 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, is entered in a fourth Turner Scott Motorsports Chevrolet. This will be just his second truck series start of the season.
 
John Hunter Nemechek, the 16-year-old son of NASCAR veteran Joe Nemechek, is scheduled to make only his second truck series start after placing 16th at Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 26. Steve Wallace, a former Nationwide Series regular and son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace, plans to make his third truck series appearance of the season.

 

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Who’s who for the tailgate tour’s annual trip to the desert

Click here for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series entry list for the Lucas Oil 150 at Phoenix International Raceway.

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Forty-one cars entered for 35th race of the season

Click here to see the entry list.

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The Sprint Cup Series returns to Phoenix, where Carl Edwards won in March

RELATED: Full Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage

Click here for the full entry list for the Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway.

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Posted on by George Winkler

Texas crash dashes hopes for fifth title as No. 24 falls three spots in standings

Updated standings | Full Texas coverage

Three up

Three down

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

Pos.

Driver

Pts back

+/-

1.

Jimmie Johnson

—

+1

2.

Matt Kenseth

-7

-1

3.

Kevin Harvick

-40

+1

4.

Kyle Busch

-52

+1

5.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

-62

+2

6.

Jeff Gordon

-69

-3

7.

Clint Bowyer

-69

-1

8.

Greg Biffle

-73

0

9.

Joey Logano

-91

+2

10.

Kurt Busch

-96

-1

11.

Carl Edwards

-116

-1

12.

Ryan Newman

-118

0

13.

Kasey Kahne

-133

0

IN THE GREEN

Jimmie Johnson (Change: Second to first)
Johnson has a seven-point lead over Matt Kenseth in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup after a dominant performance at Texas where he led 255 of 334 laps en route to his sixth victory of the season. The news gets even better for the No. 48 because Johnson’s 116.4 Driver Rating at Phoenix in the past eight years towers over that of every other driver, including Matt Kenseth (87.0). However, Johnson entered the final Phoenix race last season in the same position, seven points up on Brad Keselowski, and couldn’t close the deal on a sixth title. So he’ll be the first one to say this Chase isn’t over yet.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Change: Seventh to fifth)

Earnhardt Jr. posted his third second-place finish in the Chase with another strong run at Texas. Junior now has 13 top-10 finishes in 23 career Sprint Cup Series races at Texas Motor Speedway. However, one wonders where he’d be if he had avoided that 35th-place finish at Chicagoland to start the 2013 Chase. Other than that blip, he has been strong in the postseason with six top-10 finishes in the seven races following Chicagoland. Perhaps he’s closing in on his first win of the season.

Joey Logano (Change: 11th to ninth)

Compared to the drama that unfolded around the Penske Racing team the last time the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series was in Texas, this had to be a breeze for Logano, who finished a career-best third at the track. Remember, Logano barely made it to the grid on time for the spring race in Texas but battled back to finish fifth. Afterward the rear housings for Logano and Brad Keselowski failed inspection, leading to penalties for both teams. Fast-forward to the fall and Logano was all smiles after moving up two spots in the Chase standings as he tries to build momentum.

IN THE RED

Jeff Gordon (Change: Third to sixth)

Even if you aren’t a Gordon fan, you had to feel for what happened to the four-time champ at Texas. Seventy-four laps into the AAA Texas 500 he blew a left front tire and hit the wall in Turn 1, damaging the right side of the No. 24. Gordon admirably returned to the race but finished in 38th place, 187 laps down. Down 69 points with two races to go, Gordon’s chance for a fifth title is basically done. If that turns out to be the case, it was a dramatic ending to a run that had plenty of drama to start with when Gordon was allowed in as the 13th Chase driver following the Richmond incident.

Carl Edwards (Change: 10th to 11th)

Entering Phoenix, Edwards has the second-best Driver Rating (100.6) in the past eight years there, and he won the Phoenix race earlier this year. But a strong finish to the 2013 season is all the Roush Fenway Racing driver can shoot for after being officially eliminated from title contention following Texas. Edwards won the Coors Light Pole award, but lost his engine during the race and finished 37th. That prompted Edwards, who was driving the No. 99 Aflac Ford, to say: "Aflac has coverage for just about everything, but I don’t think they cover sick engines."

Kurt Busch (Change: Ninth to 10th)

After starting the Chase strong with a fourth-place finish at Chicagoland, Busch has settled into the middle of the pack for the subsequent races — save for Kansas, where he was second. Busch’s 17th-place showing at Texas continued a string of finishes outside the top 10 during the Chase. And although Busch is 96 points behind the leader, he is eliminated from title contention by virtue of a tiebreaker he’d lose to Johnson.

MISSED CHANCES

Matt Kenseth (Change: First to second)

A pit-road speeding penalty pushed Kenseth to the middle of the pack during the AAA Texas 500, but it didn’t take him long to get back in the top 10, and eventually he finished fourth. It was a good effort, but when the man you’re battling for the championship finishes first, it’s not quite good enough. Kenseth is a master of 1.5-mile tracks, so pundits generally expected him and not Johnson to grab a lead in the Chase coming out of Texas. Now the fight switches to Phoenix, a 1-mile track where Kenseth hasn’t been as prolific.

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off after Texas

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Five-Time puts seven points on Kenseth as Chase contenders whittled down

RELATED: Race results | Buy winner’s gear

FORT WORTH, Texas. — The speed in Jimmie Johnson‘s No. 48 Chevrolet was positively jaw-dropping.
 
Able to pull away from his pursuers with apparent ease, Johnson finished three positions ahead of Matt Kenseth in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500, breaking a tie for the lead in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. But make no mistake — Johnson’s performance amounted to a brutal bludgeoning of Kenseth and the rest of the opposition.
 
Kenseth hurt his own cause with a pit road speeding penalty, but not even a perfect day on pit road likely would have overcome the dominance of the five-time champion, who led 255 of 334 laps en route to his third victory at Texas Motor Speedway, his sixth of the season and the 66th of his career.

With two races left in the Chase, Johnson heads to next Sunday’s event at Phoenix with a seven-point lead over Kenseth, who rallied from the speeding penalty he incurred on Lap 173 to finish fourth.
 
Similarly, Johnson left Texas last year with a seven-point lead over Brad Keselowski — and lost the title. But the emphatic nature of Johnson’s win on Sunday sent an unmistakable message.
 
"We came here and tested and did an awesome job of understanding what I needed in the car and what was going to create speed," Johnson said after the race. "We came back and had a very smooth qualifying session and practice sessions, and just kept putting more and more speed in the car.
 
"It paid off today. Obviously, we need a lot of speed in the car and a win to get any points because Matt is there in the top five. Nice to gain just a few points on him. But just a dominant day for this Lowe’s team."
 
Despite the emphatic whipping he administered to the rest of the field, Johnson is anything but overconfident.
 
"I’ve been watching a lot of MMA fighting lately, and you’ll fall into a rhythm and think that somebody has got the fight won, and it doesn’t end that way," he said. "That’s how this is going to be. Matt didn’t have maybe the best day and still finished fourth. This thing is going to go to the last lap at Homestead, and it is going to come down to mistakes.
 
"I’m very excited about our performance and what we did here. We’ll enjoy this, but there is still two weeks of very hard racing ahead of us."
 
Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran second, 4.390 seconds behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate. Joey Logano came home third.
 
Neither Earnhardt nor Logano, however, had a prayer of beating Johnson, and they knew it.
 
"The 48 was in another class, and nobody had anything for him," Earnhardt said. "He was just super good all through practice and the race."
 
"Overall, we can’t be disappointed with a third-place finish," Logano added. "Just the 48 car was ridiculously fast."
 
Johnson is the first back-to-back winner of the fall race at Texas since the race became part of the Chase in 2005. Johnson also tied Carl Edwards for most NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories at the 1.5-mile track.
 
Kasey Kahne finished fifth, followed by Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Newman and Clint Bowyer. Harvick climbed to third in the series standings, but at 40 points behind Johnson and 33 behind Kenseth, it will take a miracle to put him back into the championship picture.
 
The race was a disaster for Jeff Gordon, who entered the event third in the standings but blew a tire, hit the wall on Lap 74, finished 38th and saw his hopes for a possible fifth title diminish. Gordon fell to sixth in points, 69 behind Johnson.
 

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of Kenseth after Texas

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off after Texas

Posted on by Holly Cain

Veteran’s hard wall hit leads to 38th-place finish

FORT WORTH, Texas — Devastated. That’s how Jeff Gordon described his emotions as he watched his team work furiously to repair his No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet in the Texas Motor Speedway garage only 74 laps into the 334-lap event Sunday.

Gordon, who came into the race ranked third in the Sprint Cup Seres standings — 27 points behind co-leaders Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson, blew a left front tire and crashed hard into the Turn 1 wall badly damaging the entire right side side of his car. And even though he managed to return to the race an hour later, Gordon only gained a handful of positions. He ended up scored 38th, which dropped him three spots in the championship standings to sixth — a hefty 69 points behind the new leader and Sunday’s race winner Johnson.

"Just had a left front tire go down, not really sure why yet, trying to figure that out, but that’s a shame," Gordon said from his garage as the crew worked behind him to at least the make the car drivable enough to collect what championship points he can. "I don’t know if I ran over something or we just had a failure. I felt it go down and even had time to go on the radio and say, ‘Oh you-know-what’ because I knew I was getting ready to hit the wall hard."

"It’s a shame. This team has worked so hard to get ourselves in this position and we can’t have things like this happen. This is going to hurt."

Gordon said the team hadn’t had a chance to determine what exactly caused the tire problem but that he was happy with the car following an eighth-place qualifying effort and looking forward to a long run where he was confident in showing some of the speed.

"We had something similar to this happen to the 5 car (Kasey Kahne) in Homestead testing (last week) so we were very conservative with camber and air pressure, but it puts so much strain on the left side tires to make these cars work these days," Gordon said. "It doesn’t matter now though, it happened. We’re going to take a huge hit in the points and all we can do is get as many points as we can and go to the next two races."

Gordon’s fall in the standings was the largest shakeup among the 13-driver Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field. It was particularly disheartening for him because he was the final driver who qualified for the Chase, added by NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France at the last moment because of a controversial outcome in the regular-season finale.

"It’s devastating," Gordon said. "You know how things have to go your way to stay close to those guys or even make up a gap. We had a fast car on the long runs, we just got stuck in the outside lane on every restart so we kept losing positions after we had gained them all back. I was looking forward to getting a restart on the inside and having a couple long runs because I really thought we could make some ground up.

"We have to put this behind us and go race hard the next two weeks."

Team owner Rick Hendrick was equally as dejected for his veteran driver even as he had celebrated Sunday’s race win with Johnson moments earlier.

"Jeff was leading this race earlier this year and had a bearing failure, which we never have," Hendrick said. "You know Jeff was just really pumped up about being in the Chase and winning Martinsville last week. I hate it for that team because they have really come together. You just can’t help stuff like tire problems or things that happen to you.

"I feel for Jeff because he had really shown what that team can do, I hate it for him."

MORE:

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