In Sunday’s NASCAR Nextel Cup race at the Texas Motor Speedway, veteran Jeff Burton proved the old adage that it’s not about how many laps you lead, it’s all about which lap you lead. In a race dominated by points leader Jeff Gordon and crowd favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr., the wily Burton only headed the field for one lap – but it was the most important one – the last one.

The dominant Gordon inexplicably ran high and tapped the wall just 23 laps from the end, while Earnhardt was rammed heavily from behind by Kyle Busch as he tried to avoid a spinning Tony Stewart. The frustrated Stewart had earlier been tipped into a spin by a hard charging Juan Montoya. This spin had also collected reigning champion Jimmie Johnson.

With all the star names suffering problems Matt Kenseth found himself leading with Burton closing fast. Burton timed his move perfectly and passed Kenseth with one to go to take the victory.

The Top 10 finishers were:

1. Jeff Burton (Chevrolet)
2. Matt Kenseth (Ford)
3. Mark Martin (Chevrolet)
4. Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet)
5. Jamie McMurray (Ford)
6. Greg Biffle (Ford)
7. Martin Truex Jr (Chevrolet)
8. Juan Montoya (Dodge)
9. Denny Hamlin (Chevrolet)
10. David Stremme (Dodge)

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 9:08 pm and is filed under NASCAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.