By Ryan - Posted on October 19, 2011
With only 12 laps to go, Matt Kenseth used the last restart to propel him to his 3rd victory of the season, finishing just ahead of Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards. The win moved Kenseth to third place in the point standings, as the Chase to the Championship reached its halfway point. He is only 7 points behind leader Carl Edwards.
As usual, someone – this time Carl Edwards – finished the race annoyed with Kyle Busch. He complained after the race about the line that Busch took at the final restart. “We should definitely be racing each other hard. It’s just that there’s a difference between racing hard and then cutting across a guy’s nose,” he said.
Busch was just satisfied to have finished second. Although he led 111 laps and wanted the win, coming in second was nothing to be ashamed of, considering he started in the back of the field after changing an engine.
The new points format adopted by NASCAR this year ensures that things can change very quickly in the standings. Jimmie Johnson, riding a wave of good fortune in the last two races, was running in the top ten with 17 laps left. However, he and Ryan Newman made contact, which sent him hard into the wall. The crash dropped him to 34th in the race, and 8th in the point standings. "I'm OK -- that one stung for sure." Just thankful to have safe race cars, safe walls, softer walls, and everything did its job. Pretty big impact. Unfortunate that we wrecked. We got into Turn 1 and the 39 was real tight on my outside and pulled me around. From there on I was just hanging on."
Kasey Kahne and Marcos Ambrose rounded out the top five. Ambrose is having a nice close to the seasoning, finishing in the top 10 for the third consecutive race, something that he has never done in his career before now. Kevin Harvick finished sixth, A.J. Allmendinger finished seventh, followed by Tony Stewart in eighth. Denny Hamlin finished ninth and Ryan Newman came home tenth.
The remaining Chase drivers did little to help their championship chances. Kurt Busch finished 13th, Brad Keselowski finished 16th, Dale Earnhard was 18th, Jeff Gordon was 21st, and Johnson was 34th.
