NASCAR Drivers Chasing Jimmie Johnson, Again
November 8, 2013 in Sports News
Perennial NASCAR Champ Jimmie Johnson dominated the competition at the Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon leading 255 of the 334 laps, the most laps led by a single driver at the Texas track. Johnson picked up an additional 48 points plus 5 bonus points in the Chase. His closest competitor, Matt Kenseth finished 4th and earned 41 more points toward the 2013 Chase.
Meanwhile another top contender, Jeff Gordon, is likely out of the Chase competition altogether after crashing on lap 147 at Texas on Sunday afternoon and picking up only 6 more points.
Kenseth lost back a few of the points he gained last week with his 2nd place finish at Martinsville. Jimmie Johnson and Kenseth were neck and neck going into the race at Texas but Johnson picked up another 7 points by winning the event and leading most of the way around the 1.5 mile highly banked track.
Las Vegas sports books had Johnson listed as a 7-to-2 favorite to win on Sunday at Texas. Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth were right behind at 9-to-2. Kasey Kahne was at 7-to-1 with Brad Kaselowski and Jeff Gordon at 12-to-1.
Actually, Johnson was only a -140 favorite to win the Chase with Matt Kenseth was at +110. Kenseth was actually leading in points because the first tie-breaker is based on wins for the season and Kenseth has won 7 races to Jimmie Johnson’s 5. As we saw with Tony Stewart back in 2011, the tie-breaker can be a big one.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. made some headway at Texas by posting a second place finish and picking up 42 more points toward the Chase. Kasey Kahne came in 5th and earned himself 39 more points.
So now there are only two big races left in the Chase. On November 10th NASCAR goes out to Avondale, Arizona for the Advocare 500 at the Phoenix International Speedway which is a road course where the drivers and the cars will actually be required to make right hand turns as well as the all too familiar left hand turns.
The final race of the season will take place on Sunday November 17th down at Homestead, Florida at the Homestead-Miami Speedway which is another big, fast 1.5 mile track like Texas. This last event will be called the Ford Ecoboost 400 and it is looking more and more like the Chase winner will be finally determined at Homestead.