{"id":20671,"date":"2015-11-09T10:29:28","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T18:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=20671"},"modified":"2015-11-09T10:30:04","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T18:30:04","slug":"jimmie-johnson-rallies-to-texas-win-over-keselowski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/jimmie-johnson-rallies-to-texas-win-over-keselowski\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmie Johnson Rallies to Texas Win Over Keselowski"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NASCAR<\/a><\/p>\n

It looked from all accounts that Brad Keselowski was sailing securely to his first Texas win, but with three laps to go, victory was snatched away by Jimmie Johnson, who went on to win his fourth consecutive AAA Texas 500 and sixth overall at Texas Motor Speedway, playing the spoiler role in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship Chase.<\/p>\n

Johnson, now with 75 Sprint Cup wins and only one behind Dale Earnhardt, began his charge with 18 laps to go on the final restart, staying close behind Keselowski.\u00a0 \u00a0The No. 2 Penske driver led for 312 of the 334 laps while Johnson was biding his time in the final circuits, waiting for the right moment to make his pass and did with three laps to go, accelerating past Keselowski down the backstretch, reversing his hopes of getting into the Chase Championship Round by 1.083 seconds.<\/p>\n

“I just kept pressure on him,” said Johnson, who was eliminated in the opening round of the Chase ending on Sunday a 20-race winless drought.\u00a0 “I could see that he was really tight, and that was the first I had seen him that vulnerable all day.\u00a0 I just kept the pressure on him, kept searching for a line.\u00a0 He saw me coming on the top and protected it.<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/a><\/p>\n

“I just kept trying to put pressure on him, hoping for a mistake.\u00a0 He got real loose off of Turn 2, and I had a big run down the backstretch and drove it in really far into Turn 3 hoping to hear \u2018Clear\u2019 [from his spotter].\u00a0 Once I did, I knew I was home free.”<\/p>\n

Keselowski held a two-second lead over Martin Truex Jr. when NASCAR called a debris caution with 24 laps left.\u00a0 On the restart, Keselowski and Truex rubbed fenders briefly going into turn one with no obvious damage to either as a result with Johnson in hot pursuit.<\/p>\n

“The 48 [Johnson] car had mega turn [through the corners] that last run, and I couldn\u2019t keep the turn, and it kept pushing real badly,” Keselowski said.\u00a0 “I did everything I could to hold him off, but he was way faster that last run.<\/p>\n

“Their team did a hell of a job and found speed, and my team did a hell of a job, too.\u00a0 We led 300-some laps, these debris yellows always favor someone, and it wasn\u2019t our day for them to favor us.\u00a0 I\u2019m still very proud of our effort today.\u00a0 We\u2019ll have a great shot at winning next week.\u00a0 We really needed to win this one, and I know I gave it my all.”<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/a><\/p>\n

Tire problems plagued the AAA Texas 500 with an array of delaminating issues that started early taking notables like Joey Logano out of the race, shredding his left rear on lap 12 and leaving him in 40th <\/sup>in the final rundown.\u00a0 Then tire problems struck down Kevin Harvick’s efforts twice but he remained in the hunt.\u00a0 Harvick, having additional gearshift problems, had to hold his Budweiser Chevy in fourth gear the final 100 laps, driving mostly with his left arm to prevent it from popping out of gear.\u00a0 Harvick goes into Phoenix winning there seven times including the last four straight and appears to have the inside line at the one-mile oval.<\/p>\n

The top five of the AAA Texas 500 were Johnson, Keselowski, Harvick, despite his setbacks, followed by Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards.<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/a><\/p>\n

Now with only one race left in the Eliminator Round at Phoenix, only Jeff Gordon has a clear ride to Homestead.\u00a0 Kyle Busch is + 11; Kevin Harvick + 10; and Martin Truex, Jr. + 7 as the top 4.\u00a0 The last four begins with Carl Edwards – 7; Brad Keselowski \u2013 19; Kurt Busch \u2013 28; and Joey Logano \u2013 63.\u00a0 As per the Chase rules, it\u2019s a win and you\u2019re in at Phoenix to advance to the Championship Round.<\/p>\n

Jeff Gordon, in his final Texas Motor Speedway race, finished ninth, but had a big surprise in Friday\u2019s press conference when track president, Eddie Gossage presented the retiring Gordon with two Shetland ponies for his two children.\u00a0 Gordon was stunned to say the least.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you out of your mind? \u00a0Are you out of your mind?\u201d Gordon said in disbelief. \u00a0\u201cOh my God. \u00a0Eddie \u2026you have no idea what you just did to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jeff<\/a><\/p>\n

Replied Gossage: \u201cYes I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have lost it,\u201d said Gordon, who also received custom cowboy boots and a TMS street sign.\u00a0 \u201cEddie you are unbelievable. \u2026I am mad at you but at the same time I\u2019m overwhelmed because my kids [Ella and Leo] are going to flip out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The average speed of the AAA Texas 500 was 139.490 miles per hour after being slowed by nine caution flags for 49 laps.\u00a0 There were 15 lead changes among eight drivers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500K at the Phoenix International Raceway as the next NASCAR Sprint Cup race on Sunday, November 15, starting at 2:00 p.m. EST on NBC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jimmie Johnson came through at the last minute to take the win from Brad Keselowski in Texas.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,22],"tags":[3053,3116,1190,3186,1529,1528,2844,682,2849,3429],"class_list":["post-20671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-event-coverage","tag-brad-keselowski","tag-carl-edwards","tag-jeff-gordon","tag-jimmie-johnson","tag-joey-logano","tag-kevin-harvick","tag-kurt-busch","tag-kyle-busch","tag-martin-truex-jr","tag-nascar-sprint-cup-series"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/featuredimage14.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-5np","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20671"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20680,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20671\/revisions\/20680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}