Jeff Burton Becomes First Texas Repeater

Today Texas Motor Speedway lived up to its reputation of being unpredictable. The 2007 SAMSUNG 500 saw a number of top contenders booted from contention over the final 100 laps. This race was another good one as the lead changed hands twice in the final twenty laps including a last lap pass for the win as Jeff Burton beat Matt Kenseth back to the stripe to become the first repeat winner in Texas Motor Speedway history.

Qualifying

Qualifying was rained out on Friday so the starting lineup was determined by car owner points. This put Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton on the front row. Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth made up row number two. Kyle Busch came into the weekend fifth in points but had to give up his fifth starting spot and go to the back because he crashed in practice and changed to a backup car.

Drop The Green Flag

As they dropped the green flag Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson lead lap one. Texas took a bite out of the field early as they were crashing before they even got back to complete lap one. David Ragan lost it and caused a multi-car wreck off of turn four.

The two Hendrick Motorsports teammates maintained the lead as Jeff Gordon was able to get a little bit of a cushion on Jimmie Johnson when they returned to green flag racing. Jeff Burton was able to climb up as far as second place before Jimmie Johnson got back around him for second.

There wasn't much action in the early going as Gordon, Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Burton paced the field.

Storylines

Over the last 100 laps many of the favorites fell by the wayside.

Rookie Juan Pablo Montoya was racing Tony Stewart for eighth place with 96 laps to go. Montoya slipped up into Stewart. Tony went around and was hit by Jimmie Johnson. Montoya had a reputation in Formula One racing for being overly aggressive. This incident with Stewart and Johnson won't gain him any new friends.

Shortly after that Tony Stewart spun by himself off of turn four. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was running second when he slowed because of the spin. Third place Kyle Busch didn't slow down in time and ran into the back of Dale Jr bending up both cars.

Jeff Gordon was leading with 23 laps to go when he slapped the turn four wall. He had the race firmly in his grasp until that incident. After that incident Gordon slipped back into the clutches of Matt Kenseth and lost the race.

Chasing The Checkers

Jeff Gordon won the race off of pit road as they took the final green flag with 37 laps to go. Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth and Jeff Burton were chasing Gordon to that final green. Kenseth got past Martin on the restart and started to track down Gordon for the lead. Kenseth felt like he had a tire going down and dropped back for a bit.

Jeff Gordon slapped the wall off of turn four with 23 laps to go. This seemed to affect the handling on the Dupont #24 and Matt Kenseth ran him down for the lead. Kenseth got a run on the high side with 17 laps to go and took over the top spot. Jeff Burton then got past Gordon for second and started to close in on the back bumper of the leader.

Burton worked the bottom while Kenseth protected the top. Side-by-side through the turns they battled lap after lap. Jeff Burton may have been faster but he couldn't make the pass stick on the bottom. With two to go they crossed the stripe side-by-side and they were door-to-door again at the white flag.

Finally Jeff Burton made the pass stick off of turn two on the final lap and he held on for the win.

With this victory Jeff Burton became the first repeat winner in Texas history. Burton also won the very first Texas race back in 1997.

Top Ten

1. Jeff Burton
2. Matt Kenseth
3. Mark Martin
4. Jeff Gordon
5. Jamie McMurray
6. Greg Biffle
7. Martin Truex Jr.
8. Juan Montoya
9. Denny Hamlin
10. David Stremme

The Points

Jeff Gordon maintains the point lead but Jeff Burton took a big bite out of his lead. Burton is now just 8 points behind Gordon for the top spot.

After taking two weeks off Mark Martin posted another top three finish and amazingly has worked his way back into the top twelve in points even though he has missed two races. The top twelve is important because the those drivers qualify for The Chase.

The top twelve are now:

1. Jeff Gordon -0
2. Jeff Burton -8
3. Matt Kenseth -125
4. Jimmie Johnson -181
5. Denny Hamlin -222
6. Clint Bowyer -270
7. Kyle Busch -280
8. Carl Edwards -299
9. Tony Stewart -322
10. Jamie McMurray -331
11. Mark Martin -342
12. David Stremme -357

Next Week

Next weekend the Car of Tomorrow returns as the NASCAR races in prime time under the lights in Phoenix. This relatively flat one-mile speedway will be the fastest race track that the Car of Tomorrow has seen so far. However the flat turns still put a premium on handling as the drivers will have to wrestle the cars through the turns.