The victory was the 61st of Johnson’s career in his 400th start in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and his second win in NASCAR’s most prestigious race.

Earnhardt finished second for the third time in the last four Daytona 500s. Mark Martin ran third, followed by defending series champion Brad Keselowski and Ryan Newman. Greg Biffle ran sixth and Regan Smith seventh.

Polesitter Danica Patrick came home eighth, the best-ever finish by a woman in the Daytona 500.

With tandem racing all but absent in the points race for the new Gen-6 race cars, passing was difficult and track position paramount.

“You can’t ride and wait for things to happen,” Johnson said. “You have to race all day long and fight for track position. This race car, this Lowe’s Chevrolet was so good. (Crew chief) Chad Knaus and all of Hendrick Motorsports had me a fast car, and I could really stay up front all day long. I had a lot of confidence in the final few laps leading the train, (because) I knew just how fast the car was.”

Earnhardt got a strong push from Martin on the last lap, but couldn’t catch Johnson off the final corner.

“I couldn’t have done much without Mark helping me here at the end,” said Earnhardt, who was fourth at the white flag. “I was hoping he was thinking what I was thinking as we come off of Turn 2 on that last lap. I felt like we needed to make the move a little earlier than off (Turn) 4.

“I kept backing up, backing up, trying not to let guys get racing behind us too much. If somebody ducked out of line a couple rows behind Mark, I was going to have a gap, (and) me and Mark could take off, not get hung up with those guys. Once we come off of 2, mashed the gas, got a run on Danica, side-drafted her a little bit.

“I don’t know why them guys didn’t pull down in front of me besides Jimmie, but we got through 3 and 4 with a pretty good run. Once we come to Turn 4, we kind of run out of steam, didn’t have enough to get a run on Jimmie.”

After a restart on Lap 182, following the fifth caution of the race for Jeff Burton’s hard contact with the outside wall at the entrance to the tri-oval, Keselowski and Johnson ran side-by-side at the front of the pack, trading the lead as their respective lanes gained momentum.

A caution for debris on Lap 192 set up the six-lap dash to the finish with Johnson in the lead in the outside lane.

Patrick made history when she led the field to green from the pole position. On Lap 90, she reached another milestone. Surging to the lead after a restart, she paced the field on Laps 90 and 91, and, in doing so, became the first female driver to lead a lap in the Daytona 500 and the first female to lead a green-flag Lap in the Cup series.

(Janet Guthrie led Laps 43 through 47 under caution in the Nov. 20, 1977, Los Angeles Times 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway, the only five laps she led in 33 career Cup starts.)

Later in the race, Patrick led three more laps, for a total of five, to tie Guthrie’s five.

Despite the success, Patrick was reluctant to reset expectations for her rookie season in the Cup series.

“I think that would be unwise to sort of start telling myself that top 10 is where we need to be every week,” said Patrick, who was third with one lap left but fell to eighth in the last-lap scramble. “I think that’s setting up for failure. The list of drivers in the Cup series is deep. This is a unique track. These (restrictor-plate) tracks are different and unique. (It’s) a lot about the car.

“I mean, you have to be smart enough to do the right thing at the right time, but it’s very much about the car. I feel like I’m still sticking to ‘Let’s see how these first five races go,’ where we go to a bunch of different kinds of tracks, see where we settle in, start to establish goals from there on out.”

The Toyota Camrys of Joe Gibbs Racing were running 1-2-3 as the race neared the three-quarter mark, with Matt Kenseth pacing Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. On Lap 150, however, Kenseth, who led four times for a race-high 86 laps, brought his car to pit road, having felt a vibration in the drive train. Busch parked his car two laps later, with a blown engine.

That left Hamlin at the point as the field ran single-file behind him, in a lull before the late-race pyrotechnics.

A nine-car accident on Lap 138, thinned an already depleted field. With most cars running single-file around the top of the track, Keselowski tapped David Reutimann and dropped abruptly to the apron in Turn 1.

That triggered a melee as cars checked up behind Keselowski. Carl Edwards was a victim of the accident, as ill fortune at Daytona continued to haunt the driver who already had wrecked four cars at Daytona this year.

Other casualties included 2011 Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., making his first start as a full-time Cup driver in the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford Fusion.

The first major wreck of the race — on Lap 33 as the double-file lead pack of cars exited the tri-oval — dashed the hopes of former Daytona 500 winners Kevin Harvick and Jamie McMurray, as well as those of pre-race favorites Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne.

As the field stacked up toward Turn 1, Kyle Busch tagged the back of Kahne’s car, turning Kahne into Juan Pablo Montoya’s Chevrolet SS and igniting a nine-car incident that also damaged the cars of Keselowski, Kurt Busch and Casey Mears.

Keselowski suffered damage to the both sides of his Ford, pinballing off both Montoya and Harvick, but was able to continue. Kurt Busch lost a lap on pit road with the nose of his Chevy caved in from contact during the wreck. Casey Mears, who had qualified 17th, also sustained significant damage.

Note: Other drivers who have won their 400th Cup starts include Lee Petty, Richard Petty, David Pearson, Dave Marci’s and Dale Earnhardt.

As Stewart dodged the crash and crossed the finish line, the front clip of Larson’s car sheared off, ripping the engine out of its compartment. The front suspension and engine ended up on the walkway at the bottom of the stands.

A tire from Larson’s car also flew into the grandstands.

Regan Smith led as the cars approached the checkered flag, but Smith tried to block Brad Keselowski, who was running second, and turned across the nose of Keselowski’s car.

Daytona International Speedway president Joie Chitwood III indicated that 14 spectators were transported to medical facilities off-property and 14 others were treated on site.

“First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with our race fans,” Chitwood said. “On the incident, we responded appropriately according to our safety protocols and had emergency medical personnel at the incident immediately.

“We transported 14 people off property and treated 14 people at our on-track care center.”

Chitwood referred questions about the conditions of the injured fans to Halifax Medical Center.

“I’d have to refer you to Halifax for any of the conditions of the patients,” Chitwood said.

Byron Cogdell, spokesperson from Halifax Health, said seven spectators had been transported to Halifax Medical with injuries related to the accident, five more spectators for other issues. Two of the injured spectators, one adult and one child, were in critical condition, though all patients were listed as stable.

The adult who was in critical condition was suffering from head trauma, Cogdell said. Halifax has not released the names of the injured pending notification of and consent from their families.

Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing operations, said all drivers involved in the last-lap crash had been treated and released from the infield care center.

As Chitwood and O’Donnell spoke, and with Sunday’s Daytona 500 17 hours away, track workers continued the process of repairing the fencing in the area of the crossover gate, approximately 75 yards short of the start/finish line at the 2.5-mile superspeedway.

“We’re very confident that we’ll be ready for (Sunday’s) event, with the 55th running of the Daytona 500,” O’Donnell said. “But, as with any of these incidents, we’ll conduct a thorough review. We’ll work closely with the tracks as with all our events, learn what we can and see what we can apply in the future.”

The emergency in the grandstand tempered Stewart’s fifth victory in his last six February races at Daytona and the 11th Nationwide Series win of his career.

“Fortunately, with the way the event’s equipped up, there were plenty of emergency workers ready to go, and they jumped in on it pretty quickly,” NASCAR president Mike Helton told ESPN. “And right now, it’s just a function of trying to determine what all damage is done.

“They’re moving folks, as we’ve seen, to care centers and taking some folks over to Halifax Medical (Center), so we’ll be able to update later on, but right now, all we know is everybody’s working real hard on determining what all happened.”

Larson climbed from his car almost immediately and was evaluated and released from the infield care center.

Drivers, Larson included, were more concerned with the safety of the fans than the outcome of the race.

“The important thing is what’s going on on the frontstretch right now,” Stewart said after climbing from his car. “We’ve always known since racing was started this is a dangerous sport. But it’s hard. We assume that risk. It’s hard when the fans get caught up in it.

“As much as we want to celebrate right now, as much as this is a big deal to us, I’m more worried about the drivers and fans in the stands right now. I could see it all in the mirror and it didn’t look good from where I was either.”

Smith said he wasn’t about to surrender the victory to Keselowski 200 yards from the finish line, but his first thoughts were with the injured spectators.

“Everybody the only thing I’m concerned about right now is the people in the stands,” Smith posted to his Twitter account after the race. “Praying for all who were affected by the accident.”

Keselowski echoed the concern and said he understood Smith’s attempt to block his move.

“We made a move to try and win the race,” Keselowski said. “We were in the catbird seat. Regan was in a good spot. He was first and I was second, and we were pushing. I kind of had the run and the move to win the race, and Regan obviously tried to block it, and that’s understandable.

Sam Hornish Jr. crossed the stripe in second place, followed by rookie Alex Bowman, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Parker Kligerman.

The last-lap wreck wasn’t the only serious incident of the event. A 13-car wreck in Turns 1 and 2, triggered by contact between the No. 43 Ford Mustang of Michael Annett and the No. 3 Chevrolet Camaro of Austin Dillon — both championship hopefuls — stopped the race after 116 laps and set up the finish.

Annett was transported to Halifax Health Medical Center. Richard Petty Motorsports later reported that Annett, whose car slammed the outside wall nose-first, was treated for bruising on his chest and received a CT scan. He remains in the hospital for further observation.

On the last lap in what was the debut race for NASCAR’s Gen-6 race car, Harvick blocked Stewart on the inside and moved back up the track to block Biffle, who was perilously close to sending Harvick’s No. 29 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet into the fence.

Biffle ran second, Joey Logano took third, and Stewart — his momentum broken by Harvick’s block — finished fourth. Matt Kenseth finished fifth in his first competition for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Harvick’s victory was his third in five races, following back-to-back wins in 2009 and 2010. Though Harvick will leave RCR at the end of the season to drive for Stewart-Haas Racing next year, he said the impending job change is of no consequence on the track.

“I think it’s one of those deals, where, for us, it’s about winning races,” Harvick said in Victory Lane. “The politics and everything are one thing, but when we get to the race track, it’s about sitting in this race car, making it as fast as it will go.”

Harvick may not have had the fastest car — in fact, he thought the Stewart’s Chevy SS and Kenseth’s Camry were slightly better — but he made the critical moves at precisely the right times, particularly when it came to blocking Biffle.

“In the middle segment, I could tell that Biffle was backing up and trying to time what his move was going to be as we got further into the segment,” Harvick said. “So I was working on my timing to kind of back up and block that.

“Those guys (Biffle and Logano) were coming on the outside, and I don’t know if the 14 (Stewart) and the 16 (Biffle) were side-by-side, but I just felt like I needed to move up and block that momentum, and we were able to block two of those moves.”

Biffle said he thought about trying the outside lane entering the final corner but wasn’t sure he had enough room.

“I thought about sticking it in there, and it just didn’t look like it was going to work to me,” Biffle said. “It looked like it would be sparks and parts flying. He shut the door on the top. That’s what Kevin needed to do to win the race. I looked in the mirror and didn’t have anyone pushing me.”

An incident-free 25-lap second segment, won by Harvick over Biffle, set the starting order for the final 20-lap dash for the victory. By the end of the segment both Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr. had lost touch with the 10-car pack ahead of them, but caution between the second and final segments bunched the field for a restart on Lap 56 of 75.

The first segment, on the other hand, featured plenty of action.

On Lap 15, the halfway point, a nine-car incident ruined the winning chances of nearly a third of the field. Stewart turned down across the nose of Marcos Ambrose’s Ford near the apex of Turns 1 and 2. Stewart saved his No, 14 Chevrolet, but drivers behind him checked up, seeing sparks trailing from the rear of Stewart’s car.

The ensuing wreck destroyed the cars of Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin. Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota was nicked in the melee, but he was able to continue, as were Stewart and Ambrose.

In fact, Stewart’s car was fast to enough to take the lead on the final lap of the first segment, and he held it to the finish line. During the planned caution between segments, the 12 remaining cars came to pit road for mandatory four-tire stops — a requirement dictated by a fan vote.

Fans voted to set the starting lineup for the race according to the chronological order in which drivers won their poles. That put 2012 Daytona 500 pole winner Edwards in the top starting spot and Martin, winner of the pole at Phoenix the following week, on the outside of the front row.

Both Edwards and Martin, however, had to drop to the rear for the start, because neither driver practiced his back-up car after a wreck in Friday’s opening Sprint Unlimited practice forced a change of equipment. Accordingly, Kasey Kahne led the field to green, with Biffle beside him.

After making the offer at the 2012 Sprint Cup Series award banquet, Penske said:

If he wants to do the double, I’d put him in it. We’ve talked about it before. I guess I made it official tonight.

But, Stewart decided to pass on the offer. He said:

As much as I would like to do it, we just don’t have the time to do it proper. The IRL is so competitive now, you’re not going to just show up like drivers used to do in the past and be competitive. These guys don’t leave anything on the table there. You’re not going to stroll into the Indy 500 with these guys who race every week and be as competitive as they are. It was a very humbling comment and offer that he made, for sure.

He added:

I’m very humbled by the fact that he offered it to us. It’s a great opportunity, but it’s very hard when you’re running three Cup teams right now and the obligations that we have making sure that we’re doing the right things, we have a lot of people that depend on us. And, it’s kind of like being at Thanksgiving dinner. My plate is finally full. I don’t know if I can add anymore to what I have right now.

Stewart did, however, leave the door open to doing it in the future, if the offer still stands.

Harvick said:

I’m looking forward to finishing out this season on a strong note with RCR and continuing to build our program going into the 2013 season with the ultimate goal of winning a championship. Anything beyond that, once I know what my future plans are set, I’ll let you know.

In 2014, Harvick will join the SHR stable, which includes Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, and Danica Patrick.

RCR owner Richard Childress wouldn’t talk about the rumor:

I’ve got a contract for 2013 and this is 2012. I’m not talking to you about nothing (regarding that).

Harvick has 18 career Sprint Cup victories, and has driven for RCR since his Cup career began, the week after Dale Earnhardt Sr was killed in a crash at Daytona International Speedway.

In 2010, Harvick considered leaving the team, but decided to stay in good faith. This time, he chose to leave because he thinks SHR will provide motivation that seems to be lacking at RCR.

RCR shrunk to three cars this season, after Clint Bowyer left due to a lack of sponsorship. Reports indicated that Bowyer had a sponsor lined up, but RCR wasn’t interested. As a result, Bowyer left to join Michael Waltrip Racing and had arguably the best season of his career.

Childress’ grandsons both drive in NASCAR’s lower levels. Austin Dillon is driving in the Nationwide Series, where he sits third in points. Dillon will drive the No. 33 in the Daytona 500 next season.

Ty Dillon drives in the Camping World Truck Series, where he sits second in points.

Childress is grooming RCR for his grandsons to eventually take over. While there is nothing to indicate that this has anything to do with Harvick’s decision, it is possible that it does.

Paul Menard and Jeff Burton have been struggling this season, with both out of the top 15 in the standings and winless.

Elliott Sadler, who drives the team’s Nationwide Series entry, is tied for the N’Wide series points lead. He will not return to RCR next season. He is rumored to be close to a deal with Joe Gibbs Racing. Ty Dillon could move up to the Nationwide Series next season.

Update: Stewart was asked to comment on the rumor. He said:

Well, it’s actually Dale, Jr. And (NASCAR reporter) Marty Smith is actually going to be in the fourth car. Yes, that’s where we are at. I will tell you this, when we have something to tell you guys, we’ll tell you. I’ve always said that. You guys can throw darts, but when we have something to tell you that’s different than what we’ve got going on, we’ll obviously tell you.

Update 2: Kevin Harvick is said to be taking Budweiser and Jimmy Johns with him to Stewart Haas Racing in 2014.

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Taking advantage of a late caution and four fresh tires to Brad Keselowski’s two, Johnson pulled away from Keselowski in a green-white-checkered-flag finish to win the AAA Texas 500 and tighten his grip on a possible sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.

Johnson finished .808 seconds ahead of Keselowski, the race runner-up, and increased his lead in the standings to from two points to seven. The victory was Johnson’s fifth of the season, his second at Texas and the 60th of his career. For the second straight week, Johnson won a Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race from the pole.

Kyle Busch ran third, followed by Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart and Clint Bowyer. Keselowski held the lead on two previous restarts — one a breathtaking side-by-side battle with the five-time champion — but Johnson pulled ahead in the one that counted.

As hard as the top two Chase drivers raced each other on Sunday, Johnson felt it took the level of competition between them to new heights.

“The way we raced this afternoon, this evening — that’s what’s different,” Johnson said. “That’s the first time that we’ve really engaged at that level and raced each other that hard.

“To his credit, he did a nice job of getting right to the edge, and we brought home race cars. We weren’t wadded up looking like a bunch of fools over there, handing the 5 (Kasey Kahne) and the 15 (Bowyer) a big gift.”

Had Keselowski held on to the lead for the final two laps, he would have been the Chase leader by one point.

Johnson, however, saved his best restart for the two-lap finish that sent the race one lap beyond its scheduled distance of 334 laps.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be able to execute every restart, and Jimmie did a great job on the last one,” Keselowski said. “I had to choose between wrecking him and winning the race, and it didn’t seem right to wreck him.

“Ran him hard, and we’re going to keep him honest. I know if we keep running like this that we won’t be beat.”
After NASCAR called the sixth caution of the race on lap 274, for debris on the backstretch, Keselowski entered the pits as the leader but dropped eight spots on the exchange of stops.

First, Keselowski slid to the front of his pit stall on the stop. Compounding the problem, the No. 10 Chevrolet of Danica Patrick, whose pit stall was immediately in front of Keselowski’s, stopped at the top of her box, blocking Keselowski’s exit.

By the time the No. 2 crew pushed the Blue Deuce back to give Keselowski clearance, he had lost the eight spots, as other lead-lap cars rolled past.

Keselowski spent the subsequent 30-lap green-flag run making up ground. On Lap 307, he passed Matt Kenseth for the fourth position, with Johnson running second behind Kyle Busch.

Three laps later, Marcos Ambrose’s accident in Turn 2 brought out caution No. 7, and Keselowski regained the lead with a two-tire stop. Busch was second off pit road, ahead of Johnson, who restarted third on Lap 316.

Keselowski surged to the lead, clearing Busch on the backstretch, and held the top spot until the caution on Lap 321 for an incident involving Kahne, Jeff Gordon and Greg Biffle in Turn 2 slowed the field. Kahne got the worst of the contact, lost a lap and saw his title hopes all but evaporate.

Keselowski and Johnson raced side-by-side and a hairbreadth from losing control after the restart on lap 327, with Keselowski pulling out to an eight-car-length lead, but Mark Martin’s wreck on the frontstretch two laps later set up the two-lap dash to the finish.

Busch, who had a ringside seat from his third-place finishing position, was impressed by the intensity of the racing in front of him.

“It was exciting,” he said. “Those guys up there, man, they were battling, and they battled hard, giving it everything they’ve got. That’s what they’ve got to do. (If) you’re going to win a championship in the Sprint Cup Series, that’s what you’re going to have to make of it.”

Instead, they witnessed the latest episode of “Survivor.”

Matt Kenseth won a wild war of attrition, otherwise known as the Hollywood Casino 400, beating Martin Truex Jr. to the checkered flag by .495 seconds to claim his third victory of the season, his first at Kansas and the 24th of his career.

Paul Menard ran third, followed by polesitter Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart, who rallied from a 33rd-place starting position and spin on the backstretch during the race.

Kenseth won the race despite scraping the wall behind spinning Aric Almirola on after a restart on Lap 173.

“I thought it was over when I got in the fence when Aric wrecked under Mark (Martin),” Kenseth said. “I was watching them and trying to make sure I didn’t hit them and I flat-sided it pretty bad. It ended up working in our favor. They fixed the body as good as it was when we started, and we had to take less gas in that last pit stop, and the pit crew put me out front.

“I knew I hit it really hard but thought it was centered up in the door real good, and we had a similar thing happen at Homestead last year. As soon as we got the fender back where it was supposed to be, it was fine. I was happy, as hard as I hit it, that my steering wheel was still in the right place.”

Throughout the day, however, other drivers found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. The slick, new racing surface at the 1.5-mile speedway produced a track-record 14 cautions for 66 caution laps, and no one was immune from disaster — not even a five-time champion.

Jimmie Johnson’s quest for a sixth Cup title appeared to have suffered a severe setback on Lap 135, when the No. 48 Chevrolet spun in heavy traffic and backed into the Turn 4 wall. After leading 44 laps, Johnson had just taken a wave-around for a restart on Lap 128, having been trapped a lap down when Aric Almirola smacked the Turn 2 wall, and the resulting caution interrupted a cycle of green-flag pit stops.

Johnson, however, stayed on the lead lap through a succession of pit stops under the yellow, and a liberal application of BearBond kept the No. 48 competitive. Astoundingly, Johnson and his team salvaged a ninth-place finish on a day that could have been much worse and remained seven points behind eighth-place finisher and series leader Brad Keselowski with four races left in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

“I’m very proud, but also disappointed,” Johnson said. “I crashed the car. I spun out trying to get inside the 56 (Truex). He bobbled a little in front of me, and I thought that was an opportunity to jump in the gas real hard.

“When I did that, my car took off and I couldn’t catch it. All-in-all, a good day, but it could have been a lot better. I think we could have been in Victory Lane, and stretched some points on these guys.”

Keselowski, who fought his way forward from the 25th starting position was thankful for a day that ended with his No. 2 Dodge intact.

“I’m ready to go home and have a couple beers,” Keselowski said after climbing from his car.”It’s just been a long day, Everybody has been asking all season long where the cautions have been. Well, they flew to Kansas and they’ve been hanging out here, because there was caution after caution, and it seemed like every wreck that happened today happened right in front of me.

“So, I’m glad to have survived the carnage and brought back a decent car in great shape and dodged a bullet of a race. That’s the only thing I can use to describe it.”

Despite the conditions, the repaving job, which included a reconfiguration with graduated banking, drew favorable reviews — not surprisingly — from drivers who finished near the front of the field.

“I thought the track was great,” Truex said. “The outside lane is going to come in really, really good — probably by next year, I would say. Their winters here are pretty rough, and I expect it will weather the track in really nicely.

“Once the outside got working, it was actually pretty darn good. It’s going to be a cool race track here in the future, and they did a great job with it.”

SHR was in the market for a sponsor to replace Office Depot, which announced that it was leaving the No. 14 team at the end of the season earlier this year.

Bass Pro Shops was in its last year with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and the No. 1 Chevy driven by Jamie McMurray.

Bass Pro Shops will continue to sponsor Austin and Ty Dillon in the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series.

Quicken Loans also recently extended its partnership with SHR for the No. 39 Chevy and Ryan Newman. The US Army announced earlier this season that it would leave the team at season’s end. It appears that Quicken Loans has picked up the majority of the races that the Army gave up.

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Jay Farner, President and Chief Marketing Officer of Quicken Loans said:

We were not sure what to expect with the 2012 season being our first in the sport. What we quickly found was that NASCAR fans are tremendously passionate and loyal to the brands that help drive their sport. It was their commitment to our company that ultimately allowed us to significantly increase our involvement with the sport, Stewart-Haas Racing and Ryan Newman.

Earlier this year, the US Army, which currently sponsors SHR’s No. 39, announced it would not return to the team in 2013. This expanded deal with Quicken Loans seems to have taken most of the races the Army gave up.

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In a rain-interrupted race of accumulating tension, Bowyer made it to the finish line 1.198 seconds ahead of Gordon in the closing laps of Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway. Gordon knocked Kyle Busch out of the final wild-card spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

The victory was Bowyer’s second of the season, his second at Richmond and the seventh of his career. He and teammate Martin Truex Jr. are the first two Michael Waltrip Racing drivers to make the 12-driver Chase field.

MWR teammate Mark Martin ran third, followed by Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth, but the big story was Gordon’s comeback that put all four Hendrick Motorsports cars in the Chase. Gordon joined Kahne, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the 10-race playoff.

For Busch, it was a failed pit strategy that led to his ouster from the second wild-card spot, a position he held entering the race and for the vast majority Saturday night. When a light rain caused the sixth caution on Lap 275, Busch stayed out while others came to pit road for fuel. A slow pit stop under green on Lap 334, thanks to a dropped lug nut on the right-rear wheel, did further damage to his chances and allowed Gordon to make the Chase by a three-point margin.

Several times in the last 11 laps, the second provisional wild-card spot changed hands between Gordon and Busch, who entered the race with a 12-point lead over Gordon. When Busch passed Martin Truex Jr. for the 15th position on Lap 390 of 400, he had the berth. When Gordon passed Mark Martin on Lap 394, he took it back.

Ultimately, Busch dropped positions to Marcos Ambrose and Hendrick driver and pole-sitter Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was on a late-race mission to help his teammate make the Chase.

“We missed,” Busch said tersely after the race was over. “Plain and simple.”

Team owner Joe Gibbs advised his mercurial driver to handle his disappointment the right way.

“There’s no right way to handle this situation,” was Busch’s rejoinder.

Gordon started second but quickly faded. By the time rain halted the race on Lap 152, he was a lap down and going nowhere. Under the caution that preceded the red flag, however, his crew cut the chain to the rear sway bar to disconnect it, and the handling of the No. 24 Chevrolet improved dramatically.

“I felt like I won the race [Saturday],” Gordon said. “When that was over, when they told me I was in the Chase, we made it — I mean, I was ecstatic. I was going nuts. To me, after you have that kind of effort, fall back, then come up there and finish second, almost win the race, make it by [three points], man, I don’t see any reason why we can’t go over these next 10 races and be a real threat for the championship.”

Bowyer recovered from a spin just past the midpoint of the race and rallied for the win. On Lap 234, contact with Juan Montoya’s Chevrolet deflated Bowyer’s left-rear tire. Fighting for control, Bowyer looped his car near the start/finish line.

“Thank you, Juan Pablo, for wrecking me and then winning me the race — thank you!” quipped Bowyer, who was then in position to gamble on fuel mileage. “We had a bad race last weekend [at Atlanta] and had a lot of adversity we had to bounce through, were kind of bummed out as a team, as a whole, coming into this race.

“It’s a good way to get things bounced back headed into this Chase. You can’t ask for a better race team, my teammates, MWR, everybody that’s a part of this. It’s just unbelievable.”

The consolation for Joe Gibbs Racing is that Denny Hamlin begins the Chase as the No. 1 seed on the strength of four victories in the first 26 races. That provides little solace for Busch’s crew chief Dave Rogers, who made the decision to keep his driver on the track when a pit stop would have been the safe play.

“We missed it — my fault,” Rogers radioed to Busch. “One hundred percent my fault.”