Capping a dominating performance at Texas Motor Speedway when several other drivers tried unsuccessfully to play the fuel mileage game in the AAA Texas 500, Tony Stewart put his No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet in Victory Lane for the 43rd time in his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) career. It was Stewart’s fourth win in eight of the 10 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup races, and moved him closer to the leader in the championship hunt as he took his second career victory in the Lone Star State.
While Stewart had the dominant car today, and led seven times for 173 of the 334 laps, Jeff Burton, No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet came on strong and was the race leader during the closing laps of the event. But Burton ran out of gas two laps from the finish and wound up 27th in the finishing order.
Stewart, a two-time NSCS champion, made good on his post-race promise after winning last week at Martinsville, VA, that he was going after the title; and, he now sits just three points behind the series leader, Carl Edwards (Ford) who finished second. There are now just two stops remaining on the 36-race schedule, Phoenix, AZ and Homestead, FL, and Stewart continues to come on strong.
The remainder of the top-five finishers behind Stewart and Edwards were Kasey Kahne (Toyota), Matt Kenseth (Ford) and Greg Biffle (Ford).
It was a challenging day for championship contender Kevin Harvick in the No. 29 Rheem Chevrolet, but a hard-fought 13th place race finish was enough to maintain third in the order behind Stewart and Edwards. Harvick sits just 33 points shy of the lead.
FIN CAR DRIVER MAKE 1 14 Tony Stewart Chevrolet 2 99 Carl Edwards Ford 3 4 Kasey Kahne Toyota 4 17 Matt Kenseth Ford 5 16 Greg Biffle Ford 6 24 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 7 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 8 56 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 9 33 Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 10 43 A.J. Allmendinger Ford 11 9 Marcos Ambrose Ford 12 6 David Ragan Ford 13 29 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 14 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 15 27 Paul Menard Chevrolet 16 39 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 17 21 Trevor Bayne Ford 18 42 Juan Montoya Chevrolet 19 5 Mark Martin Chevrolet 20 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 21 83 Brian Vickers Toyota 22 0 David Reutimann Toyota 23 78 Regan Smith Chevrolet 24 2 Brad Keselowski Dodge 25 13 Casey Mears Toyota 26 51 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 27 31 Jeff Burton Chevrolet 28 47 Bobby Labonte Toyota 29 71 Andy Lally * Ford 30 22 Kurt Busch Dodge 31 38 Travis Kvapil Ford 32 34 David Gilliland Ford 33 18 Michael McDowell Toyota 34 32 Mike Bliss Ford 35 135 Dave Blaney Chevrolet 36 1 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 37 20 Joey Logano Toyota 38 36 Geoffrey Bodine Chevrolet 39 46 Scott Speed Ford 40 66 Josh Wise Toyota 41 37 Mike Skinner Ford 42 87 Joe Nemechek Toyota 43 55 J.J. Yeley Ford
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