[media-credit name=”Getty Images for NASCAR” align=”alignright” width=”235″]
[/media-credit]Jimmie Johnson won from the pole for the second week in a row on Sunday in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Johnson restarted on the outside of Brad Keselowski on the final green-white-checkered restart. Johnson made the pass and pulled away while exiting turn-2 and held onto the lead for the final laps.
“I got a great restart and got by him. I knew we had the speed if I could just get by him.” Johnson said.
After contact on the previous restart, Keselowski kept it honest.
“I had to choose between wrecking him and winning the race and it didn’t seem right to wreck ‘em. Ran ‘em hard and we’re going to keep him honest. I know if we keep running like this that we won’t be beat.” Keselowski said. “It’s going to be a dogfight all the way down to Homestead.”
Johnson led 168 laps and stretched his lead in the series standings to 7 points over Brad Keselowski with two races remaining.
“It was an awesome race. It’s a great way to do it when the gloves are off and it’s bare-knuckle fighting,” Johnson said.
Kyle Busch finished third and Kurt Busch finished eighth and were the only two top-10 finishers that were not in the chase.
Matt Kenseth finished fourth and Tony Stewart finished fifth.
“I didn’t think we would ever be standing here with a top-five the way our day started. We started way off and these guys never gave up. They battled hard all day long and got me a good finish.” Kenseth said.
Other chase contenders that still had a shot entering Texas were Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne. Bowyer finished sixth and is now 36 points out and Kahne finished 25th and is now 58 points out.
| 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 | – | 48 | Jimmie Johnson | Chevrolet | 48 |
| 2 | – | 2 | Brad Keselowski | Dodge | 43 |
| 3 | – | 18 | Kyle Busch | Toyota | 42 |
| 4 | – | 17 | Matt Kenseth | Ford | 41 |
| 5 | – | 14 | Tony Stewart | Chevrolet | 39 |
| 6 | – | 15 | Clint Bowyer | Toyota | 38 |
| 7 | – | 88 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | Chevrolet | 37 |
| 8 | – | 78 | Kurt Busch | Chevrolet | 36 |
| 9 | – | 29 | Kevin Harvick | Chevrolet | 35 |
| 10 | – | 16 | Greg Biffle | Ford | 34 |
| 11 | – | 20 | Joey Logano | Toyota | 33 |
| 12 | – | 39 | Ryan Newman | Chevrolet | 33 |
| 13 | – | 56 | Martin Truex Jr. | Toyota | 31 |
| 14 | – | 24 | Jeff Gordon | Chevrolet | 30 |
| 15 | – | 43 | Aric Almirola | Ford | 29 |
| 16 | – | 99 | Carl Edwards | Ford | 28 |
| 17 | – | 22 | Sam Hornish Jr. | Dodge | 0 |
| 18 | – | 1 | Jamie McMurray | Chevrolet | 26 |
| 19 | – | 31 | Jeff Burton | Chevrolet | 25 |
| 20 | – | 11 | Denny Hamlin | Toyota | 24 |
| 21 | – | 13 | Casey Mears | Ford | 23 |
| 22 | – | 21 | Trevor Bayne | Ford | 0 |
| 23 | – | 93 | Travis Kvapil | Toyota | 22 |
| 24 | – | 10 | Danica Patrick | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 25 | – | 5 | Kasey Kahne | Chevrolet | 19 |
| 26 | – | 83 | Landon Cassill | Toyota | 18 |
| 27 | – | 27 | Paul Menard | Chevrolet | 17 |
| 28 | – | 34 | David Ragan | Ford | 16 |
| 29 | – | 55 | Mark Martin | Toyota | 15 |
| 30 | – | 195 | Scott Speed | Ford | 14 |
| 31 | – | 32 | Ken Schrader | Ford | 13 |
| 32 | – | 9 | Marcos Ambrose | Ford | 12 |
| 33 | – | 47 | Bobby Labonte | Toyota | 11 |
| 34 | – | 42 | Juan Montoya | Chevrolet | 10 |
| 35 | – | 38 | David Gilliland | Ford | 9 |
| 36 | – | 51 | AJ Allmendinger | Chevrolet | 8 |
| 37 | – | 26 | Josh Wise * | Ford | 7 |
| 38 | – | 98 | Michael McDowell | Ford | 6 |
| 39 | – | 36 | Dave Blaney | Chevrolet | 5 |
| 40 | – | 87 | Joe Nemechek | Toyota | 0 |
| 41 | – | 119 | Mike Bliss | Toyota | 0 |
| 42 | – | 37 | J.J. Yeley | Chevrolet | 2 |
| 43 | – | 191 | Reed Sorenson | Toyota | 0 |
