There is a new leader in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship and this is how it happened.
In simple terms, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Denny Hamlin finished ahead of both the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Jimmie Johnson and the No. 29 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Kevin Harvick in the Texas AAA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday. Toronto Sun
Kenseth held second, matching his best finish of the season, with Mark Martin running third, Joey Logano fourth and Greg Biffle fifth.
Kevin Harvick came home sixth and remained third in the standings, now 59 points behind Hamlin.
Despite holding the points lead, Hamlin promised to race aggressively next Sunday at Phoenix and in the season finale Nov. 21 at Homestead.
“I’m going to race Phoenix as if I’m 33 behind, to be honest with you,” Hamlin said. “There’s no comfortable margin going into Homestead, because anything can happen. So for me—Phoenix being an up-and-down race track for me—I’ve got to really be focused on practice day to get what I need, to give [crew chief]Mike [Ford] the information that I need—just 100 percent stay focused is all I can do.
“But like I say, I’m not going to be conservative having the lead. I’m going to want to stretch that out before we get to Homestead. So that’s pretty much my mind-set.” NASCAR.com
FIN CAR DRIVER MAKE 1 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 2 17 Matt Kenseth Ford 3 5 Mark Martin Chevrolet 4 20 Joey Logano Toyota 5 16 Greg Biffle Ford 6 29 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 7 33 Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 8 6 David Ragan Ford 9 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 10 98 Paul Menard Ford 11 14 Tony Stewart Chevrolet 12 47 Marcos Ambrose Toyota 13 83 Kasey Kahne Toyota 14 43 A.J. Allmendinger Ford 15 0 David Reutimann Toyota 16 1 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 17 21 Trevor Bayne Ford 18 77 Sam Hornish Jr. Dodge 19 99 Carl Edwards Ford 20 39 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 21 9 Aric Almirola Ford 22 78 Regan Smith Chevrolet 23 19 Elliott Sadler Ford 24 2 Kurt Busch Dodge 25 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 26 13 Casey Mears Toyota 27 82 Scott Speed Toyota 28 42 Juan Montoya Chevrolet 29 38 David Gilliland Ford 30 110 Bobby Labonte Chevrolet 31 26 Patrick Carpentier Ford 32 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 33 12 Brad Keselowski Dodge 34 71 Andy Lally Chevrolet 35 7 Robby Gordon Toyota 36 31 Jeff Burton Chevrolet 37 24 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 38 56 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 39 66 Mike Bliss Toyota 40 9 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 41 34 Travis Kvapil Ford 42 37 Dave Blaney Ford 43 87 Joe Nemechek Toyota
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