By Ryan - Posted on October 26, 2011

 At Talladega on Sunday, it looked as if Jeff Burton was going to get his first NASCAR Sprint Cup win since October of 2008. He pulled away on the final restart with three laps to go, pushed by his teammate Clint Bowyer. Perhaps he would have gotten his first win in three years if he had been pushed by someone else. However, Bowyer pulled around Burton through the tri-oval on the very last lap, and won by less than 2 one-hundredths of a second. It was his first win this year, and the 100th series win by Richard Childress Racing.

Although the main goal of Talladega is surviving without a banged-up car, Burton was disappointed with his second-place finish. "Whenever you leave here not wrecked, you ought to be happy, but at the same time, I'm heartbroke we didn't win the race. Having said all of that, I don't know what I would have done different.  Honestly, I thought he made his move too early. I thought I'd be able to pull back to him, but he had a lot of momentum when he made the move."

Talladega is always the “wild card” in the 10-race chase to the championship, and this week’s race was no different. Only five of the Chase drivers finished in the top 24. Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch were caught up in a wreck on lap 104, and were not able to recover enough to finish in the top 30. Harvick’s 32nd place finish dropped him to fifth in the Chase standings, and Busch’s 33rd finish leaves him in sixth place, going into the race at Martinsville.

This highest finishing Chase driver was Brad Keselowski, who finished fourth. This moved him to third spot in the Chase standings. Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin finished seventh and eighth. Non-chase drivers took most of the top ten spots. Dave Blaney finished third, Brian Vickers was fifth and Kasey Kahne finished sixth. After Chase drivers Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin came Michael Waltrip and Martin Truex Jr.

Carl Edwards finished 11th, and was able to pad his lead in the points standings to 14 over Matt Kenseth.