Sprint Cup Chase Standings 2014: NASCAR Grid, Schedule After AAA Texas 500
In the first Eliminator Round race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Dale Earnhardt Jr. played the spoiler. In Sunday's AAA Texas 500, Jimmie Johnson made it two straight.
Johnson narrowly edged Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski after a green-white-checkered finish to capture Sunday's race and make it two-for-two with non-Chase competitors winning Eliminator Round races. The No. 48 car, which dominated for most of the day, pulled away during the second green-white-checkered attempt.
The first failed when race leader Jeff Gordon, battling for the lead, spun out to cause a caution. Gordon wound up dropping from a potential Championship Round-clinching win to a 29th-place finish. After the race, the crews from Gordon's and Keselowski's teams were involved in a brawl that ended with both drivers suffering minor scrapes.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Meanwhile, Gordon's teammate who was eliminated from title contention three weeks ago added his fourth win of 2014. Johnson, now the two-time defending champion of the event, spent most of the evening acting as such. He led a race-high 191 laps and was especially strong in the early going, at times extending multi-second leads over the field.
Keselowski and Harvick were able to come up with top-five finishes at a time when they needed it most. Both struggled mightily at Martinsville and would have been facing a win-or-go-home scenario at Phoenix with another disappointment. Here is a look at how the point standings look after Sunday:
| 1 | Joey Logano | 4072 | 5 |
| 2 | Denny Hamlin | 4072 | 1 |
| 3 | Ryan Newman | 4070 | 0 |
| 4 | Jeff Gordon | 4060 | 4 |
| 5 | Matt Kenseth | 4059 | 0 |
| 6 | Carl Edwards | 4059 | 2 |
| 7 | Brad Keselowski | 4055 | 6 |
| 8 | Kevin Harvick | 4054 | 3 |
| Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 | Sun., Nov. 9 | 3 p.m. | ESPN |
| Ford EcoBoost 400 | Sun., Nov 16 | 3 p.m. | ESPN |
After a rather nondescript 12th-place finish, Joey Logano moves into the top spot. Though he and Denny Hamlin have the same amount of points, Logano wins a tiebreaker thanks to his series-high five victories in 2014. With another solid performance next week, the No. 22 Ford would be a near-lock for a final-four run. Logano, Hamlin and Ryan Newman are all 10 points clear of fourth-placed Gordon.
"Yeah, it stresses you out, I promise you that," Logano told George Diaz of the Orlando Sentinel. "That stress level is up because you can't get too far ahead in three races or feel comfortable enough that you are locked in. That stress level is up for each race for sure for everybody. It is just a matter of how you deal with it. It is about the same for everyone, whether you use it as a good thing or if it destroys you.
Outside Gordon and Matt Kenseth, who finished 25th, Sunday was a rather uneventful day for the eight remaining drivers. The six not named in the previous sentence each finished in the top 15, and they represented five of the top 12.
Carl Edwards somehow wound up ninth despite a largely miserable day. Edwards, in his last season in the No. 99 car for Jack Roush, went down two laps early and lost the grill on the front of his car. Smart pit strategy and the luck of the draw allowed Edwards to work his way back onto the lead lap, and he worked his way into the top 10.
While Edwards' pit box was mostly filled with frustration, days like those are the ones that win championships. Everything that could have gone wrong did. Yet he still ended up better off than Gordon, who led 49 laps and had a strong car all day. That Kenseth and Gordon wound up the two worst in the Chase would have been unthinkable at the race's midpoint.
The drivers head to Phoenix next week for the Eliminator Round finale. Harvick has taken three of the last four races at the mile-long track, including the spring race in March. Harvick probably doesn't need a win to advance to the one-race Championship Round, but the schedule still broke in his favor.
Edwards and Hamlin each have strong histories at Phoenix as well, so it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Wins by Earnhardt and Johnson put a monkey wrench into proceedings, as consistency is now just as important as victories. One bad finish and your season is already on the line—or, in Gordon's case, one bad lap.
If the post-race scene Sunday is any indication of what to expect, competition level at Phoenix will reach an all-time high.
Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
