Tony Stewart led seven times for a race-high 173 laps in route to his second straight victory and the fourth out of the eight Chase races on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.
Stewart backed up his talk at Martinsville and cut into Carl Edwards’ series points lead and only trails by three points with two races remaining.
[media-credit name=”Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images” align=”alignright” width=”239″]
[/media-credit]“I told you guys that last week, nobody listens to me when I talk anymore. No, I mean we are set on it man, this is just the way it is going to be.” Stewart said.
Edwards led 14 laps and finished second, 1.092 seconds behind Stewart.
“I’m proud of our guys today.” said Edwards. “We wanted to beat Tony (Stewart) and pad the lead, but we are still the point’s leader. We are going to hold Tony to it and they are going to have to run that well in the next two races to beat us.”
Kasey Kahne finished third, Matt Kenseth fourth and Greg Biffle finished fifth.
Subbing for the suspended Kyle Busch, Michael McDowell finished 33rd.
Mathematically still in, Five-time champion Jimmie Johnson finished 14th, remains in sixth place in the series points, 54 out. Six in a row is now very unlikely.
| Unofficial Race Results | |||||
| AAA Texas 500, Texas Motor Speedway | |||||
| http://www.speedwaymedia.com/Cup/race.php?race=34 | |||||
| ========================================= | |||||
| Pos. | St. | No. | Driver | Make | Points |
| ========================================= | |||||
| 1 | 5 | 14 | Tony Stewart | Chevrolet | 48 |
| 2 | 7 | 99 | Carl Edwards | Ford | 43 |
| 3 | 9 | 4 | Kasey Kahne | Toyota | 42 |
| 4 | 3 | 17 | Matt Kenseth | Ford | 41 |
| 5 | 1 | 16 | Greg Biffle | Ford | 40 |
| 6 | – | 24 | Jeff Gordon | Chevrolet | 38 |
| 7 | 16 | 88 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | Chevrolet | 37 |
| 8 | – | 56 | Martin Truex Jr. | Toyota | 36 |
| 9 | – | 33 | Clint Bowyer | Chevrolet | 35 |
| 10 | – | 43 | A.J. Allmendinger | Ford | 34 |
| 11 | 12 | 9 | Marcos Ambrose | Ford | 33 |
| 12 | 2 | 6 | David Ragan | Ford | 32 |
| 13 | – | 29 | Kevin Harvick | Chevrolet | 31 |
| 14 | 11 | 48 | Jimmie Johnson | Chevrolet | 31 |
| 15 | 4 | 27 | Paul Menard | Chevrolet | 30 |
| 16 | – | 39 | Ryan Newman | Chevrolet | 29 |
| 17 | 13 | 21 | Trevor Bayne | Ford | 0 |
| 18 | 15 | 42 | Juan Montoya | Chevrolet | 26 |
| 19 | – | 5 | Mark Martin | Chevrolet | 25 |
| 20 | – | 11 | Denny Hamlin | Toyota | 24 |
| 21 | – | 83 | Brian Vickers | Toyota | 23 |
| 22 | 6 | 0 | David Reutimann | Toyota | 22 |
| 23 | 10 | 78 | Regan Smith | Chevrolet | 21 |
| 24 | 8 | 2 | Brad Keselowski | Dodge | 21 |
| 25 | – | 13 | Casey Mears | Toyota | 19 |
| 26 | – | 51 | Landon Cassill | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 27 | – | 31 | Jeff Burton | Chevrolet | 18 |
| 28 | – | 47 | Bobby Labonte | Toyota | 16 |
| 29 | – | 71 | Andy Lally * | Ford | 15 |
| 30 | 14 | 22 | Kurt Busch | Dodge | 14 |
| 31 | – | 38 | Travis Kvapil | Ford | 0 |
| 32 | – | 34 | David Gilliland | Ford | 12 |
| 33 | – | 18 | Michael McDowell | Toyota | 11 |
| 34 | – | 32 | Mike Bliss | Ford | 0 |
| 35 | – | 135 | Dave Blaney | Chevrolet | 9 |
| 36 | – | 1 | Jamie McMurray | Chevrolet | 8 |
| 37 | – | 20 | Joey Logano | Toyota | 7 |
| 38 | – | 36 | Geoffrey Bodine | Chevrolet | 6 |
| 39 | – | 46 | Scott Speed | Ford | 0 |
| 40 | – | 66 | Josh Wise | Toyota | 0 |
| 41 | – | 37 | Mike Skinner | Ford | 0 |
| 42 | – | 87 | Joe Nemechek | Toyota | 0 |
| 43 | – | 55 | J.J. Yeley | Ford | 1 |
If memory serves, the whole reason for the “Chase” was because Kenseth won the championship one year even though he never won a race, beating out, I believe it was Newman, who had won four or five races.
Now, here we are in the “Chase” with Edwards leading without winning any races and Smoke a close second with four or five wins.
My point is, anyone who knows how to add knows that no matter what the championship WILL go to the driver who is the most consistent during the season, every time. If a driver is consistently in the top ten during the season, even if he doesn’t win a race, he is going to gain more points then a driver who wins even four or five times but finishes 20 or worse the rest of the time.
In conclusion, I hope Smoke does win, but it will not, as NASCAR wants us to believe, mean that the Chase is more exciting then the old scoring method. It only shows that the “Chase” is an unnecessary gimmick.