NSCS - Samsung 500 4/5

Jeff Gordon finally breaks his career-high 47 race winless drought after scoring his first win at the 1.5 mile Texas Speedway.

Gordon led 6 times for the race high 105 laps. He resumed the lead with 27 laps to go onto his 1st win and 9th top-10 finish in 17 races @ Texas. It marks Gordon's 82nd career win. He remains 6th on the all-time wins list, one behind Cale Yarborough. Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip are tied for third with 84 victories each.

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

"It feels like the very first time I've ever won. It's been a long streak. It's been a lot of ups and downs and tough times, not only here at Texas but just over the past, I don't know they keep reminding me I think it was 46, 47 races. And I knew we were going to get one eventually. I feel like we had some missed opportunities last season, even as we didn't have a great year. But there was still times we could have won. And so that just keeps you driving and driving hard and pushing forward. But at the end of this season, I don't know, I wrote Steve an e mail and we talked a lot. And I just saw the progress that was being made in the final 10 races with how Steve's restructuring the engineering and the team and his efforts. And it just fired me up to want to do even more than I already was" Gordon said shortly after winning. "And when you have that, you just have a great team that works well together, believes in one another, and all we were missing was that victory. And I can't believe it happened here today at Texas. But, man, this is just even better than any other place. I think this is probably the best place we possibly could have won, because it's eluded us for so long, and to break the streak not only here at Texas, but over the last 40 whatever races, it's pretty cool and I'm real proud of this guy. He's worked his tail off to get us here. And this was an incredible team effort today."

Gordon now has a win at every track on the current Cup schedule except for Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Jeff Gordon won by .542 seconds ahead of his teammate Jimmie Johnson. Johnson's 5th top-10 finish of the season and 9th top-10 @ Texas.

Greg Biffle led a combined (second-best) 93 laps and his teammate, Matt Kenseth led for 55 laps. With 39 laps to go, Carl Edwards took the lead from Jeff Gordon. After leading 9 laps, a spin by David Stremme brought out the final caution of the race. Edwards' crew had problems changing tires which caused Edwards to lose 10 spots on pit road. We know races can be won or lost on pit road. Edwards finished 10th with Greg Biffle - 3rd and Kenseth - 5th.

Kyle Busch didn't fare as well as during the cup race after winning the Nationwide Series race the day before. Kyle struggled to get back on the lead lap through much of the race. He finished 18th and as the first driver one lap down.

There were 6 cautions for 30 laps and a new track record of 28 lead changes among 14 drivers:

D. Reutimann 0; J. Gordon 1-7; D. Reutimann 8-46; M. Kenseth 47-50; D. Reutimann 51; T. Stewart 52; Kyle Busch 53-54; M. Kenseth 55-87; T. Stewart 88-98; M. Kenseth 99-116; G. Biffle 117-152; J. Gordon 153; D. Ragan 154; Kurt Busch 155; M. Martin 156; G. Biffle 157-208; T. Stewart 209-211; J. Gordon 212; M. Martin 213-214; J. Johnson 215; P. Menard 216; G. Biffle 217-221; J. Gordon 222-252; D. Earnhardt Jr. 253-258; J. Gordon 259-295; C. Edwards 296-304; T. Stewart 305; B. Vickers 306; J. Gordon 307-334.

For complete (unofficial) results, click here.

NNS - O'Reilly 300 4/4

Kyle Busch made it look way too easy @ Texas after leading 178 of 200 laps for the win in Saturday's Nationwide Series race. His 2nd win of the season and 23rd in the series. Kyle became the first driver to win a Nationwide Series race from the pole @ Texas as well as win three consecutive races @ Texas.

Busch finished 1.447 seconds ahead of runner up finisher, Tony Stewart. Brad Keselowski finished 3rd followed by David Ragan and Paul Menard.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images for NASCAR

There were 4 cautions for 18 laps and 6 lead changes among just 4 drivers: K. Busch 1-56; Brad Keselowski 57; K. Busch 58-68; T. Stewart 69-73; K. Busch 74-89; J. Burton 90-105; K. Busch 106-200

For the complete (unofficial) results, please click here.

Garage Talk

Huge in the garage already this weekend - GM's financial troubles. For more on this story, click here.

Petty Motorsports to show up at the Indi 500. For more details, click here.

The Sprint Cup banquet moves to Las Vegas this year. For more details, click here.

Need For Speed Race Preview: Texas

It's just Friday afternoon and there's already been a lot of action at the Texas Motor Speedway!

Mark Martin was fastest during the 1st practice session with David Reutimann, Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle and Jimmie Johnson also posting top 5 speeds on the leaderboard. 48 drivers will attempt to qualify for Sunday's race, Samsung 500. It might be worth mentioning that in 16 cup races @ Texas, just one race has been won from the pole. Kasey Kahne won from the number one starting spot on April 9, 2006.

Who to watch for?

Jimmie Johnson finished 2nd last year in the spring race @ Texas. In his 11 races at the 1.5 mile track, he has 1 win, 5 top-5 and 8 top-10 finishes. His win last week moved him up 5 spots to 4th in the Sprint Cup Series standings.

Carl Edwards swept both races @ Texas last year. He leads all drivers with 3 wins there and most laps led (467).

Matt Kenseth has faded seemingly out of sight since winning the first 2 races of the season. Kenseth has finished in the top 10 @ Texas in six of the last races there.

And let's add, Jack Roush leads all car owners in wins @ Texas with seven.

Tony Stewart could be a fave this weekend. He says he has "a gut feeling". Stewart has a win, 3 top-5s and 8 top-10s in his 14 races at the track. He's currently 7th in the standings. Not bad for a 1st time owner/driver is it?

There's 2 tracks points leader Jeff Gordon has not won a cup race at on the current schedule: Texas and Homestead-Miami. Gordon extends his longest winless streak to 47 races. Consistency can be king. 7 races into this season, Gordon has only 1 finish outside the top 10 when he finished 13th in the Daytona 500.

After 3 off weekends in the past 4 weeks, the Nationwide Series will be back on a more consistant schedule beginning this weekend @ Texas. We left off with Carl Edwards on top of the Nationwide Series point standings.

Kyle Busch won the spring race last year @ Texas. Kyle will lead the field to the green in Saturday's O'Reilly 300. He won the pole award with a lap of 28.685 seconds at 188.252 mph. It's his 16th pole in the series and 1st of this season. Busch swept both Texas races last season.

Matt Kenseth qualified second and Paul Menard 3rd.

I'm counting 12 full-time cup drivers pulling double duty in Texas this weekend also including: David Reutimann, Tony Stewart, Michael Waltrip, Jeff Burton, Joey Logano and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Todd Warshaw/Getty Images

Catch the O'Reilly 300 on Saturday beginning at 2:30 on ESPN2.
TV coverage for the Samsung 500 starts at 1:30 on Sunday on FOX.


David Reutimann won the pole for Sunday's race. It's his 2nd pole in 70 cup races. His 1st pole and 4th top-10 start this season.

Jeff Gordon will start 2nd and Matt Kenseth 3rd.

Click here to view the starting line-up.

Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR

NCWTS - Kroger 250 3/30

Kevin Harvick won the rain postponed Kroger 250 @ Martinsville Monday afternoon.

Once again, we saw the driver who lead the most laps not win the race. Kyle Busch lead a race high 139 laps. He took the lead on lap 102 until 10 to go when Harvick was able to make the pass to take over the lead.

Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

"I was able to get to his bumper there and just kind of get him up about half a groove and got up under him," said Harvick, who ran the final 185 laps, including one extra lap because of a green-white-checkered-flag finish, on one tank of fuel.

"I got him up there once before, and he was able to get back by me on the outside," Harvick said. "I didn't want to wreck him, but I knew it was time to start applying the pressure pretty heavily if I was going to get by in case a caution or something would come out. It just takes a while to complete a pass over another fast vehicle."

Kyle Busch was penalized for a commitment line violation under the final caution which sent him to the back of the field for restart to the green, white, checkered flag finish. Busch finished 17th.

There were 14 cautions for 80 laps and 4 lead changes among 5 drivers:
R. Crawford 1-78; R. Hornaday Jr. 79-94; J. White 95-101; K. Busch 102-240; K. Harvick 241-251.

NSCS - Goody's 500 3/29

We've seen it often before - the dominant car doesn't always win. In this case, defending race winner Denny Hamlin led the race high 296 laps but couldn't hold on to take the checkered flag.

With 15 laps to go, Jimmie Johnson made a pass for the lead and held on for the win. Johnson lead twice for 42 laps, but we can't forget he knows how to get around the track they call the "paper clip". Johnson won for the fifth time in the last 6 races @ Martinsville. Nick Laham/Getty Images

Johnson & Hamlin had differing views on the pass.

Jimmie Johnson: "If he wants to think that I tried moving him out of the way, he can believe that, but he should watch the video and see that I was inside of him - climbed up on the curb - and he was still coming down. The only reason we touched and the only reason he ended up in the rubber where he couldn't come back and get me was the fact that he chopped me. I patiently worked to get that spot, to get the position inside of him, and he crowded me on the bottom."

Denny Hamlin: "I would've done the same to him and if it comes back around, I will do the same thing. It's just the way it is. At Martinsville, you've got to battle for every inch."



What's your take? Was it simply 'good hard racin'?

Johnson's win marked the 18th cup victory for Hendrick Motorsports @ Martinsville and on the 25th anniversary of Hendrick's very first cup series win. Geoffrey Bodine drove the #5 to victory lane @ Martinsville in 1984.

Jeff Gordon started from the pole and lead early for a combined 147 laps. His winless streak extends to a career-high 47 races. Jeff said he's "not really concerned with this streak" as his focus is on what his team needs to do to win races and win the championship.

Gordon remains the points leader by 89 points over 2nd place Clint Bowyer.

All 4 Hendrick cars finished in the top 8. Jeff Gordon finished 4th, Mark Martin 7th and Dale Earnhardt Jr 8th.

There were 12 cautions for 66 laps and 13 lead changes among 7 drivers:
J. Gordon 1-43; D. Blaney 44; S. Speed # 45-56; J. Gordon 57-140; J. Mayfield 141; J. Gordon 142-155; D. Hamlin 156-342; J. Gordon 343-348; D. Hamlin 349-354; B. Labonte 355; D. Hamlin 356-429; J. Johnson 430-455; D. Hamlin 456-484; J. Johnson 485-500.

For complete (unofficial) results, click this link...

Garage Talk

Juan Pablo Montoya attempted to apologize to Jamie McMurray for an on track incident @ Bristol. Jamie wasn't receptive and their talk was said to have been heated. For more, click here.

Will Jeff Gordon need back surgery? For more, click here.

USF1 interested in Allmendinger and Speed? Not Danica & Busch? For more, click here.

Dale Jr and Hendrick had a "constructive" meeting regarding season woes. For more, click here.

Matt & Katie Kenseth are expecting their first child together. For more, click here.