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| The battle between Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR) |
“Once I got to the front and got clean air, my car was loose again, it was the first time I was in clean air and I just didn't have a pit stop or two to really work on the car and make it lead. I kind of lost a little to Kyle and hung on to second," Johnson said.
For the second week in-a-row Denny Hamlin's race ended in tears. He crashed; his crew fixed his car, only he finished 15-laps back in 35th.
“We were fighting the car all day, from tight to loose and back and forth. Our car just really struggled on corner entry on being loose. I was in a pack of cars there and tried to enter the corner with a little bit more speed and just got too loose and got into the wall,” Hamlin, who now is in the second wild card position, explained.
Tony Stewart, who finished ninth, is on the Chase bubble in tenth place and winless this year. He was very pessimistic about a shot at third championship when he said “"our stuff is so bad right now, we're wasting one of those top-12 spots.”
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| Race winner Kyle Busch (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR) |
Whether Kyle Busch can carry his momentum to a title is still a question mark.
As Johnson explained, “… the Chase does something to everyone, the pressure that's put on the drivers, watching your life's work come to work over a 10‑race period of time. As the races click off, it comes down to two or three races left, it does weird things to people, outside the car, on the pit box, things happen.”