Winners and Losers: NASCAR Banking 500

(Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)

In the final night race of the year, and the only night race, of the Chase the NASCAR Sprint Cup series drivers and crews got to play in their own backyard on Saturday night.

With the title far from decided six drivers are within 121 points for the trophy going into the race. 31 other drivers were looking to play spoiler and steal the Chase drivers thunder on Saturday night.

Check out the winners and losers of the NASCAR Banking 500.

Winners

Jimmie Johnson

What can you say; Jimmie Johnson can take a bad race car and pull out a win with it. Johnson once again showed why Lowes Motor Speedway is his house. He didn’t dominate today but he was able to maintain track position and pull away on a late restart.

Johnson was not very happy with his car early on, in fact he was struggling with the handling of the car. Once again they were able to work on the car and with the best pit stall more times than not they were able to win the race off of pit road.

Johnson expanded his point lead but he can not rest easy as his teammates are not just rolling over each week. Johnson wanted to win badly as Saturday marked the final time his primary sponsor Lowes Home Improvement would be the sponsor at the Charlotte race track.

Johnson is making it look easy, but that does not mean it will be.

Points: First

Kasey Kahne

After a rough ending in California that saw Kasey Kahne racing for a top 10 finish to crashing late in the race and collecting a DNF. Kahne headed to Lowes with some confidence as in recent years Kahne has found some success on this track.

Kahne started in the top five and never really ran outside of it. In fact he had one of the best cars all night long. Kahne was running one of Richard Petty Motorsports older engines, Kahne said early on he like this engine package and his lap times proved that.

Kahne had issues at times with a loose race early on in the race and then as the night wore on he would get tighter. The team worked on the car and was able to make solid adjustments on his car and keep the track position all night long.

Kahne finished third and could have challenged for the lead had it not been for a vibration on the final restart. Give this team and driver credit they clearly put California behind them and were ready to challenge for the win.

Kahne is out of the championship hunt, but he made it clear with his run on Saturday night, he will not go down easy.

Points: Ninth

Joey Logano

Sprint Cup rookie Joey Logano put on an impressive effort on Saturday night. His finish doesn’t tell the whole story and it wasn’t very easy for Logano.

Under the third caution for light rain, Logano came onto pit road after running in the top 10. He followed Kahne, whose pit stall was in front of Logano. Instead Logano slid past his pit and was forced to back up. This cost him a lot of time on pit road and he was restarting deep in the pack.

Logano though showed a lot of patience with traffic and worked his way back into the top 25. He was back in the top 15 after halfway and by the end of the race he was battling for a top five finish.

Logano finished fifth on Saturday night. He showed a lot of maturity for his mistake early on. His team on pit road also helped with great pit stops and made no mistakes, to aid in their comeback.

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