CUP: Johnson Wins Texas Two Step, Pads Chase Lead

Sprint Cup

CUP: Johnson Wins Texas Two Step, Pads Chase Lead

Jimmie Johnson outguns Brad Keselowski at finish to boost point lead to seven…

Mike Hembree | Posted November 04, 2012 Fort Worth, TX

Under some of the toughest pressure of his career, Jimmie Johnson answered the bell – and did so loudly.

Racing side by side with his key championship contender, Brad Keselowski, Johnson won a two-lap shootout to the finish to take Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 and pad his lead in the Sprint Cup standings.

Winning for the second week in a row, Johnson increased his Chase lead to seven points over Keselowski, who finished second.

Keselowski led at the restart with two to go, but Johnson got a powerful start – in fact, it appeared that he barely beat Keselowski to the start/finish line, took the lead on the outside and led the rest of the way. Ironically, on the previous restart, Johnson (and Kyle Busch, who also was up front) had complained that Keselowski had jumped the start.

With two races remaining, Johnson carries big momentum to Phoenix next week. He has won the pole and the race in the last two Chase events.

“It was an awesome race,” said Johnson, who described some of the late-race jousting as “bare-knuckle fighting. I have a lot of respect for the 2 (Keselowski’s) team. Those guys are doing a great job.

“I got a great restart and got by him. I knew we had the speed if we could just get by him.”

Seconds before the last caution of the race flew, Keselowski and Johnson had bumped side by side fighting for the lead.

“We walked right up to that line, got right to the edge, and it stopped,” Johnson said of the pair’s late-race encounters. “I just pointed at him and wanted him to use his head. There was no sense in taking both of us out. If he had taken me out, I would have been in the gas to take both of us out.”

Keselowski visited the crowded Texas Motor Speedway victory lane to congratulate Johnson, a move Johnson later described as “very classy.”

After the race, Johnson said Keselowski jumped the next-to-last restart. “I felt like he went real early and caught us (Kyle Busch) both off guard,” he said.

Of his later restart, Johnson said, “He (Keselowski) spun his tires pretty bad, and I was pedaling trying to let him catch up as we got to start-finish. He kind of surged past. NASCAR has been aware in the past, and if you give that nose back, you’re in good shape.”

Keselowski led Johnson at the front of the pack with 59 laps to go when a debris caution sent the leaders to the pits. Keselowski then made an error, sliding to the end of his pit and losing valuable time when he had to back up to exit to avoid Danica Patrick’s car in the pit in front of him.

That dropped Keselowski from first to ninth, and Kyle Busch took the lead for the restart, with Johnson second.

Over the next 25 laps, Keselowski advanced to fourth.

Then another caution bunched the field as Marcos Ambrose slapped the wall in turn one.

Keselowski took a big gamble on that round of caution-flag pit stops, taking two tires when the other leaders took four. That put him in first place for the restart with 19 laps to go, and he got a big jump on second-place Busch at the green flag. Both Busch and Johnson said on their team radios that Keselowski jumped the restart.

The caution flew again with 12 laps to go when contact between Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne sent Kahne into the wall. Then the final caution – caused by Mark Martin’s accident – set up the two-lap shootout.

Keselowski, who battled the rest of the lead pack evenly despite the fact that everyone else was on four new tires, said after the race that both of the final two restarts were OK.

“I think NASCAR has said they’re not going to get out a micrometer and measure that kind of stuff,” he said. “That’s the kind of interpretation of the rules right now. I think it was probably fair play on both sides.”

Following Johnson and Keselowski to the finish were Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle.

The Texas results essentially turned the Chase into a two-driver race with events remaining at Phoenix International Raceway and Homestead-Miami Speedway. Third-place Bowyer is now 36 points behind, and fourth-place Kasey Kahne, who finished 25th Sunday, is 58 back.

Johnson said his seven-point lead gives him “a small amount of control, but we’re definitely in control. We don’t have to make up any points. But seven points is nothing to feel comfortable about and relax on. We’re still going to Phoenix as if we’re behind and try to sit on the pole and win the race.”

Halfway through the race, Johnson led, but the race for the championship remained very close as Keselowski ran in second, 2.8 seconds behind Johnson.

The tight nature of the Chase was illustrated clearly during the first caution period when Keselowski pitted and took only two new tires, putting him in position to lead a lap on the restart and pick up an additional point. He was second to Ryan Newman on the restart but quickly took the lead to put the point in his pocket.

The first 100 laps of the race were run without a caution, and Johnson led all but one lap over that sequence.

Then three cautions fell in quick succession, slowing the race from laps 101 to 104, 110 to 118 and 120 to 128.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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Mike Hembree

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