Hey everyone! Hope you had a great weekend topped off with a great race at Texas Motor Speedway. After the Dickies 500 today there are only 2 races left for the chase, Phoenix and Homestead-Miami. Johnson is off to a good lead with the closest driver still 183 points behind him at the start of this race. Tony Stewart, who qualified 8th originally, cut a tire during practice yesterday and had to go to a backup car and was forced to start towards the back of the field for today’s race. Texas is one of only two tracks that Jeff Gordon hasn’t won at in his career, and starting from the pole, he is hoping to change that with today’s race at Texas. This is how they qualified for the start of the race today:
1st Jeff Gordon 24-Chevy
2nd Martin Truex Jr. 01-Chevy
3rd Clint Bowyer 07-Chevy
4th Jamie McMurray 26-Ford
5th Dale Earnhardt Jr. 88-Chevy
6th Matt Kenseth 17-Ford
7th Jimmy Johnson 48-Chevy
8th Reed Sorenson 41-Dodge
9th Scott Riggs 66-Chevy
10th Paul Menard 15-Chevy
The race was dominated by Carl Edwards who won the 5 points for most laps led in the race. There was a total of 16 lead changes between a handful of drivers, but Edwards really dominated today at Texas. In all there were only 5 cautions throughout the race. Mostly for debris and or oil from racecars. The fifth caution was for an exchange between David Gilliland and Juan Pablo Montoya. Juan felt that David had retaliated for something earlier and intentionly spun him into the wall. David responded from the garage area saying that it was an error in judgement and not an intentional move on his part to purposely cause the spin putting Montoya into the wall and out of the race. In the end, Carl Edwards drove his #99 Office Depot to victory lane in his third victory at the Texas Motor Speedway, gambling with fuel until the very last lap.
With only 2 races left, Phoenix and Homestead, the race for the chase really intensified. The gap between Johnson and his closest competitor Carl Edwards went from 183 points to a mere 106 points. There is a whole lot of racing left to be done in the next 2 weeks, the gap is closing, and the game is far from over for Johnson as he manuevers to maintain his lead. This could really turn out to be anyone’s game after all!
With Carl Edwards closing the gap between himself and Jimmy Johnson, I can only imagine that Jimmy is feeling the heat fast on his heels what with Carl’s win today and Johnson only finishing a mere 15th . Jeff Gordon had a really great day calling it a victory of sorts for the Dupont Chevy and bringing it home for a second place finish. Here’s how they wound up the day at Texas:
1st Carl Edwards
2nd Jeff Gordon
3rd Jamie McMurray
4th Clint Bowyer
5th Greg Biffle
6th Kyle Busch
7th Kevin Harvick
8th Martin Truex Jr.
9th Matt Kenseth
10th David Reutimann
David Ragan and Mark Martin round out the top 12 places in the Dickies 500. Mark announced Friday that he would not be driving the #5 Hendricks car at Homestead as earlier anticipated. Instead Casey Mears is going to drive finishing out his season with Hendricks before moving to RCR Racing next year where he will drive the #07 car for that organization. Mark Martin will drive the #5 car next year for Hendricks Motorsports joining teammates Johnson, Gordon, and Dale Jr..
Now lets review the points standings after today’s race.
Jimmy Johnson 6366 points
Carl Edwards 6260 -106 points behind Johnson
Greg Biffle 6223 -143
Jeff Burton 6154 -212
Jeff Gordon 6111 -255
Clint Bowyer 6099 -267
Kevin Harvick 6087 -279
Matt Kenseth 5973 -393
Tony Stewart 5962 -404
Kyle Busch 5938 -428
Dale Earnhardt Jr. 5937 -429
Denny Hamlin 5935 -431
Next week it’s Phoenix. I dont know much about the Phoenix raceway either. I guess it will be a learning experience for us all again this week. If you are attending the race this coming weekend at Phoenix, make sure you purchase one of their special stars and stripes hats specially created to help celebrate Veteran’s Day. One lucky fan seen wearing the special hat will win an oppurtunity to ride in the patriotically themed pace car to open the race. That’s pretty cool if you ask me!
Well it was a great race today! I’m glad Edwards threw a monkey wrench into Johnson’s plans for a third straight championship. I cant wait to see what happens in the next two weeks. Well until Wednesday, here’s hoping everyone has a great week. Until then race fans.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the update, Didn’t get to see the race yesterday. Bet Jimmie Johnson will be gunning for the win at Phoenix next week.
Can’t believe that wreck with Juan Pablo Montoya. They should park David Gillian for the rest of the year. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t trying to wreck the both of them he actually did it.