As the Chase for the championship continues on the NASCAR Sprint Cup series heads to Kansas Speedway for the Price Chopper 400.
Kasey Kahne who is winding down his run at Richard Petty Motorsports won the pole with his teammate Paul Menard lining up next to him.
Early on it was Kahne who was able to maintain the lead until Jeff Gordon took over the lead on lap 28. It was a long green flag run early on until caution waved when Juan Pablo Montoya pancaked the wall on lap 41.
The field was about 10 laps away from pit stops prior to the yellow flag. The entire field hit pit road. Gordon led the way and maintained the lead coming off.
Jimmie Johnson lost five positions on pit road when he was blocked in. He restarted 21st but struggled on the restart.
A handful of lap’s late caution waved when Kyle Busch and David Reutimann made contact. Reutimann spun and brought out the caution.
The back half of the field hit pit road including Johnson. He would restart 28th and be sitting in the hornet nest.
On the restart Gordon got a good restart but Matt Kenseth rocketed past Ryan Newman for second and quickly took the lead from Gordon who settled in second.
Points’ leader Denny Hamlin was struggling early in the race with a tight race car. He started 12th and made his way to the top 10 but quickly lost the handling of the car heading into the first pit stop.
Hamlin was only running mid-pack while many of his Chase competitors were up front early in the race.
The race cycled with a green flag pit stop and Stewart who took the lead from Kenseth prior to the stop would maintain lead coming out.
Clint Bowyer who was looking forward to coming to his home track this weekend wasn’t having the day he had hoped. After starting 27th, Bowyer was never able to get going. He was running 32nd as halfway approached and off the lead lap.
There was another round of green flag stops where Stewart maintained his lead on the track. Caution waved when Reutimann attempted to pay back Busch for earlier contact. Reutimann spun and Busch smacked the wall very hard.
Busch who was running top 10 at the time at a track where he has struggled was obviously not happy with Reutimann.
All but Harvick, Mark Martin and Ryan Newman hit pit road. Most just took two tires and fuel as some were outside their window.
A few laps into the run Kahne got loose and hit the wall hard. As the caution waved his front left tire blew. Top eight did not pit as the teams behind them did.
Most teams could make it on one more stop and with the caution laps the race was looking more and more like fuel mileage was going to be a factor.
Stewart ran down Harvick and took the lead from him on lap 171. Stewart would lead the way until caution waved for Kevin Conway whose engine blew. This brought all the leaders to pit road for fuel and adjustments.
Jamie McMurray took two tires and Menard did the same and would lead the field to the green on the restart.
Everyone else took four tires and fuel as they were still outside the fuel window. The round of green flag run that occurred set up the final pit stops with 25 to go.
Biffle maintained the lead off of pit road which was exactly what this team needed to help jump start his title hopes.
Biffle pulled away from the field as they were battling behind him. Biffle not only won the race he moved up to eighth in the standings.
The rest of the top 10 were Johnson, Harvick, Stewart, Gordon, Carl Edwards, Kenseth, Menard, Ryan Newman and AJ Allmendinger.
Some notable finishes were Ky. Busch finished 21st, Ku. Busch finished 13th. Jeff Burton who had a fast car early fell off and finished 18th.
Hamlin who was leading the points coming in ended up finishing 12th.
Johnson now leads the points by eight points over Hamlin. The top 10 drivers in the points are the closest it has ever been leaving Kansas.
Now they head west to California to Auto Club Speedway on Sunday at 3ET on ESPN.
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