He still controls his own destiny.
Kenseth figures if he wins the last two races of the season, he would win the title unless points leader Jimmie Johnson leads the most laps and finishes second in both.
So while he certainly wishes he had finished ahead of Johnson in the AAA Texas 500 on Sunday, he won’t grimace about finishing fourth when they entered the race at Texas Motor Speedway tied atop the standings. Johnson dominated the race, leading 255 laps on the way to the win.
“It’s still in our hands,” Kenseth said. “I’ve got what I think is the greatest race team out there and we’re going to go there and work as hard as we can and try to get the best finishes that we can and see where it ends up. … We’re right in it.
“If we hit everything right, we can have days like we had today. We’ve had them this year. I still feel good.”
Kenseth had to rally from a pit-road speeding penalty, which dropped him to 16th on Lap 175 of the 334-lap event. Bolting out of his pit stall, Kenseth was 0.6 mph too fast in the first full pit-road timing section just past his pit stall.
“I sped trying to be aggressive just because I knew we were not as good as (the leaders),” Kenseth said. “Everybody tries to use the (speed) lines to your advantage and I just got out of my stall too fast.”
Able to rally back to the front, Kenseth had a top-five car and finished fourth.
“We were just a little off,” Kenseth said. “I just couldn’t help (my crew) enough to give them the information they needed to get the car to where I needed to run a little better.
“It’s all on me. … We threw a lot of stuff at it. We just never had it quite good enough.”
EARNHARDT BEST IN CLASS
Dale Earnhardt Jr. couldn’t complain much after his second-place finish Sunday at Texas.
Jimmie Johnson was the class of the field, and with Johnson’s cars coming from the same building at Hendrick Motorsports, Earnhardt had to settle for second on a day when pretty much everyone was running for second.
Earnhardt joked that his was like a GT car, which in road racing typically is a slower car than the top of the class.
“He was in a class of his own,” Earnhardt said. “We were joking that we won the GT class. They were super-fast. I was super, super impressed with those guys’ car.
“I’m happy to have a good effort and looking forward to the last couple of races. Hopefully we will get us a win. We keep getting close.”
The runnerup finish was Earnhardt’s fifth of the season and his 20th top-10 of as he continues to look for his first win of the year.
“We're not running second by making mistakes,” Earnhardt said. “We're not giving away wins. So I feel like we're just really getting close to cracking through. Just trying to maintain the momentum with two races to go is going to be tough. But that's what we're focusing on.”
Earnhardt started seventh and felt his Steve Letarte-led team improved the car throughout the day at a track where the team had tested less than two weeks earlier.
“We got it a little bit better and a little bit better (in practice) and then we worked on it last night in the bus studying,” Earnhardt said. “When the race started, it wasn't that great; it was OK. But we dialed it in and I think the track kind of came to us as it got dark here (with the sun going down).
“(Crew chief) Steve (Letarte) is doing a good job of dialing the car in. He is giving good cars every week. I am driving them all right. I'm just staying out of trouble."
Earnhardt improved two spots to fifth in the standings, 10 points behind fourth-place Kyle Busch and seven ahead of sixth-place Jeff Gordon. He is out of title contention, 62 points behind Johnson.
GORDON’S CHASE HOPES OVER
The Chase for the Sprint Cup looked like a three- or four-man race entering Sunday’s event at Texas.
It may be down to two after Gordon crashed on Lap 73.
A few laps after Busch — another title contender — had a tire problem and slapped the wall, Gordon veered to the right and slammed into the outside wall. Gordon immediately took his car to the garage.
Gordon said he felt the tire going down.
“I just know the left front went down as I was going down the front straightaway,” Gordon told ESPN. “I felt it before I got there but I couldn’t get it slowed down fast enough.”
Gordon entered the race third in the Chase standings, 27 points behind leaders Kenseth and Johnson after his win last week at Martinsville.
The wreck dropped him out of title contention with just two races remaining.
"It’s just devastating," Gordon told reporters in the garage. "You know how hard this team has worked. You know how things have to go your way in order to stay close to those guys or even make a gap up. We had a great car on long runs. … I think we really could make some ground up. But it doesn’t matter now. That’s the thing. We just have to put this behind us and go race hard the next two weeks."
BAD DAY FOR BUSCH
Busch’s Chase hopes took another hit Sunday when he slammed the wall early at Texas, and then got nabbed for speeding late in the race.
Busch was hoping to get back into the title race at Texas, where he won in April. He was running second when he tagged the wall on Lap 57, damaging the right side of his car.
After repairs, he returned to the track in 29th position but steadily worked his way back into the top 10. He was running second late in the race when he was penalized for speeding during a green-flag pit stop and finished 13th.
He gained a spot in the standings, to fourth, but fell to 52 points behind Johnson.
Contributors: Bob Pockrass, Jeff Owens
