Sprint Cup

Denny Hamlin won at Texas for the second time this season to take over the lead in the closest three-way Chase for the Sprint Cup yet with two races left. Hamlin moved in front with 29 laps to go, then got a push from Matt Kenseth on the final restart with three laps to go Sunday. Kenseth pushed ahead momentarily before Hamlin got right back in front and went on to his series-best eighth victory of the season. Emporia Native Clint Bowyer finished seventh at the race. His #33 car finished just over 300 laps of the race, but still hangs back 367 points of the Sprint Cup lead.

When Denny Hamlin walked into the Martinsville Media Center Saturday, sat down an exclaimed. "Who said it was over?  Told you it wasn't over," you have half expected him to go into a Bluto from Animal House diatribe about nothing is over until we say it is. And while I would expect that Hamlin knows the Germans did not bomb Pearl Harbor, the Chase for the Sprint Cup has gone a little Animal House. Now the wildest wild card of them all, NASCAR's toga party in so many ways, Talladega is next up. And we've got ourselves a points race.