Biffle Claims the Texas Trophy
FORT WORTH, Texas — Sprint Cup series points leader Greg Biffle proved his top slot worthiness by winning the Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway Saturday night.
After taking the lead on lap 304, Biffle pulled away for a 3.235-second victory over Jimmie Johnson. It was Biffle's first win since Oct. 3, 2010 (at Kansas), his second at Texas and the 17th of his Sprint Cup career.
Johnson led the most laps with 156 and was fortunate to finish 2nd after hitting the wall in the late race.
Mark Martin took 3rd, Jeff Gordon 4th and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top five.
Martin Truex Jr. had a great night with a 6th spot, followed by Kasey Kahne in 7th Carl Edwards 8th, and Kevin Harvick took 9th. Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s 10th place finish put all four Hendrick cars in the top 10, but Biffle baffled the fearsome foursome and robbed the Hendricks from from that 200th victory.
From mid race when Johnson passed passed pole-sitter Martin Truex Jr. for the lead on Lap 180, Johnson dominanted the field. Biffle could only watch the back end of the Lowe's Chevrolet as he ran hard to keep the five-time champion in sight.
With 34 laps left Biffle put the petal to the metal and chased down Johnson passing him on lap 304 and never looked back.
There were only two cautions in the race with the the final 234 laps ran under green. That set new race records with an average speed of 160.575 mph, the fewest number of cautions and fewest number of caution laps (10).
NASCAR moves the show to Kansas next week for the STP 400, 12:30 p.m. EST, on Fox.
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