Kurt Busch was able to stretch his fuel supply to the finish line and score his second win of the year after he took the checkered flag Sunday in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Busch inherited the lead two laps from the finish when his brother Kyle, who was shooting to sweep all three NASCAR National series races at Texas this weekend, ran out of gas.
From there, Busch was able to hold on to score his first Cup Series win at the 1.5-mile Fort Worth track. The win also gave Michael McGee, who was selected as the 2009 Dickies American Worker of the Year, 1 million dollars for choosing Kurt Busch at random as the winner before the race.
“I knew what we had for fuel mileage,” Busch said. “I was confident in my guys’ numbers. They gave me what we needed to win today. We were fast. We were playing cat-and-mouse with Kyle on restarts. That was the first true time that Kyle and I raced each other hard for a victory like this.
“For us to come away and knock him off his sweep he was trying to go for was bittersweet. I was rooting for him. But this was for us.”
But while Busch was celebrating in Victory Lane, the big story of the day focused on the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship race.
Jimmie Johnson, who brought a 184 point lead over Mark Martin into the weekend, was caught up in an early race accident when he tangled with Sam Hornish, Jr. on lap three.
He spent 112 laps in the garage area while the team repaired his damaged No. 48 Lowes Chevrolet and ended up 38th in the final rundown.
That allowed his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin to cut the advantage to only 73 points with two races to go in the season.
"Luckily we’ve raced for every point throughout this Chase," Johnson said. "We still have a decent points lead right now. We need to dust ourselves off, head to Phoenix, get a good one in the bank there."
Denny Hamlin finished second for his third top five in nine starts at Texas and jumped three spots in the standings to eighth.
"Played out in our favor, for sure," Hamlin said. "Usually these fuel mileage races don't go our way. Obviously we gained some spots today on the fuel mileage thing."
Matt Kenseth raced to a third-place finish after starting 30th. The finish was his sxith consecutive top 10 at Texas.
"When we knew we were short on fuel, I thought when we came and got tires with 25 to go, fuel, we actually had a shot to win if some of those guys didn't make it," Kenseth said.
Martin took advantage of Johnson's misfortune and came home fourth.
"It didn’t feel as good when I knew we didn’t have a chance,” Martin said. “It’s still a longshot because they have great performance. We can't go outperform them 70-some points, but racing’s not over with yet.”
Kevin Harvick coasted home to round out the top five.
Pole-sitter Jeff Gordon led the opening 11 laps but struggled to bring home a 13th-place finish. He also spun his No. 24 Chevrolet on lap 176 when fellow Chase contenders Juan Pablo Montoya and Carl Edwards crashed in Turn 1 ahead of him.
Gordon remains third in the standings and now sits 112 points behind Johnson. Busch was able to move up two spots to fourth after his victory.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series now heads to Phoenix International Raceway for next Sunday's Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500.
