Kurt Busch won Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway!

The Busch brothers turned in a dominant performance leading all but 13 laps in Sunday’s race.

Photo Credit: Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR

“Just a full team effort all the way around, good solid pit stops, to good pit strategy, back to the guys at the shop building a fast race car, that I was a bit apprehensive of bringing to the racetrack,” Busch said. “So it shows what I know and what they know.  Just keep to the driving, Kurt, and let them do the engineering.  In the end, this just makes a very solid team.”

“We were well rounded tonight with power, with downforce, with handling.  In the end, strategy is what played out for us to come out on top.  A small bit of fuel mileage we had to play, but it wasn’t very large, for us one lap shy.  Our Dodge engine was able to give us the fuel mileage we needed to come out on top of everybody.”

The Busch brothers rode 1-2 throughout the day. Kurt led 89 laps and was running 2nd behind his younger brother, Kyle, when the younger Busch ran out of gas with 3 laps to go. Kyle led 232 laps on his quest to become the first driver to win all 3 of NASCAR’s top touring series races in one weekend. Kyle won both, the Camping World Truck Series and Nationwide Series races at Texas Motor Speedway over the weekend.

“I can’t explain why we ran out,” Dave Rogers, the new crew chief for the no. 18, said. Kyle was credited with an 11th place finish.

Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

“I knew what we had for fuel mileage — I was confident in our guys’ numbers,” Kurt said. “They gave me what I needed to win today. We were fast, we were playing cat-and-mouse with Kyle on restarts — you know, it’s the first true time that Kyle and I have raced each other hard for a victory like this. For us to come away and knock him off his sweep — he was trying to go for it — it’s bittersweet. I was rooting for him, but at the same time, this is for us.”

Kurt moved up 2 spots in the standings to 4th, 171 points back. The win was #20 for Busch in the Sprint Cup Series and his 2nd win and 19th top-10 finish this year.

Denny Hamlin finished second. “Usually these fuel mileage races don’t go our way,” Hamlin said. “Obviously we gained some spots today on the fuel mileage thing.  Felt like we had a really, really good car.  But we just hurt ourselves real bad on pit road today.  We lost a ton of spots.  Track position meaning so much at this racetrack, it killed us. I was frustrated and we were behind, so I tried to make something happen, got into the wall, hurt our car.  As soon as that happened, we were just in fuel save mode.  Luckily it went green the rest of the way.”

Matt Kenseth finished third. “When we knew we were short on fuel, I thought when we came and got tires with 25 to go, fuel, we actually had a shot to win if some of those guys didn’t make it,” Kenseth said. “The 2 was fast all day.  Pat Tryson is famous for calling fuel mileage races.  I’m happy Kurt won.  He was really fast all day. Wasn’t like somebody running 20th won the race.  It was cool that Kurt pulled that off.  They were able to go a couple extra laps, and be fast, stay out there.  We got tires, ran, raced as hard as we could all day.  I thought we had a third  or fourth place car on performance.  Even the fuel mileage, we still finished third. Overall it was a really great day for us.  We started 30th.  Really had to battle hard for it all day long.”

It was not a good day for the points leader Jimmie Johnson. On lap 3, contact with Sam Hornish Jr. put the 48 in the wall. The team worked on the car to get Johnson back out on the track, 112 laps later.

“I just tried to play through my mind what could have done differently at the start of that race,” Johnson said. “I don’t think I could have done anything different.  77 lost it.  I wish could have waited a few more laps before he lost control of his car.  Think he did the second time.  Wish I wouldn’t have been around the first time.  Definitely it took us out.  Not much we could do. Luckily we have a big points lead.  All along we’ve been trying to tell everybody this thing is far from over, what our mindset has been.  Luckily we’ve raced for every point throughout this Chase.  We still have a decent points lead right now.  We need to dust ourselves off, head to Phoenix, get a good one in the bank there.”

Johnson finished 38th.

Photo Credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images for NASCAR

Johnson’s point lead was shaved from 184 to 73 points over 2nd place, Mark Martin. Martin finished 4th at Texas.

There were 5 cautions for 26 laps and 13 lead changes among 4 drivers: J. Gordon 1-11; Kurt Busch 12-57; Kyle Busch 58-87; Kurt Busch 88; Kyle Busch 89-145; D. Hamlin 146-147; Kyle Busch 148-167; Kurt Busch 168; Kyle Busch 169-172; Kurt Busch 173-207; Kyle Busch 208-268; Kurt Busch 269-271; Kyle Busch 272-331; Kurt Busch 332-334

For the (unofficial) race results, click here.

It’s now down to 2. The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup continues on Sunday, November 15th at Phoenix International Raceway. TV coverage will start at 2:30 ET on ABC.