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FORT WORTH, Texas -- Denny Hamlin's victory in Sunday's AAA Texas 500 wasn't a knockout blow to Jimmie Johnson's title hopes, but it did deliver a stinging message to the four-time defending Cup Series champion.
Hamlin's win, his series-best eighth of the season, his second in a row at Texas Motor Speedway and the 16th of his career, was perhaps more effective than the haymaker Jeff Gordon -- yes, Jeff Gordon -- tried to lay on Jeff Burton after Burton wrecked the No. 24 Chevrolet under caution on Lap 192.
And Hamlin's victory certainly wasn't as surprising as crew chief Chad Knaus' dismissal of Johnson's No. 48 over-the-wall crew after a series of blown pit stops. With Gordon's No. 24 crew available, Knaus knocked his own crewmen out of the box; the last straw was slow work on the right-front tire under caution on Lap 194.
Johnson minimized the damage with a ninth-place finish, but repeated loss of track position helped transform his 14-point lead over Hamlin entering the event into a 33-point deficit as the series heads to Phoenix with two races left.
In a three-lap sprint to the finish, after Patrick Carpentier spun in Turn 2 to cause the ninth caution of the race, Hamlin swapped the lead with Matt Kenseth and surged ahead for good when Kenseth ran out of room in Turn 2 on Lap 333 of 334 and had to back out of the gas.
Kenseth held second, matching his best finish of the season, with Mark Martin running third, Joey Logano fourth and Greg Biffle fifth. Biffle led a race-high 224 laps but lost first and second gears in his No. 16 Ford and couldn't accelerate on restarts.
Kevin Harvick came home sixth and remained third in the standings, now 59 points behind Hamlin.
Despite holding the points lead, Hamlin promised to race aggressively next Sunday at Phoenix and in the season finale Nov. 21 at Homestead.
"I'm going to race Phoenix as if I'm 33 behind, to be honest with you," Hamlin said. "There's no comfortable margin going into Homestead, because anything can happen. So for me -- Phoenix being an up-and-down race track for me -- I've got to really be focused on practice day to get what I need, to give [crew chief]Mike [Ford] the information that I need -- just 100 percent stay focused is all I can do.
"But like I say, I'm not going to be conservative having the lead. I'm going to want to stretch that out before we get to Homestead. So that's pretty much my mind-set."
Trailing with two races left in the Chase is an uncharacteristic position for Johnson, who has been the frontrunner after eight races in each of the past four years.
"The past four years, we've been in a different position," Johnson said. "I've lost plenty of championships in the past, and this is racing, and it doesn't come easy, and you are not going to get what you want every single year and every single weekend.
"I can promise you this -- I am trying as hard as I can. I know my team is. We're doing everything we can. Thirty-three points back is not where we want to be, but we're going to work to get back on top."
Gordon's pit crew helped salvage a respectable finish for Johnson. After the change, the No. 24 crew performed flawlessly for three stops. Nevertheless, Knaus expected to have his regular crew back next week at Phoenix.
Related:
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File photo of Denny Hamlin
Texas Motor Speedway , the race track where the race was held.
 driver , who qualified thirtieth, won the   held on Sunday at  in , Texas, United States. This became his eighth win of the , and his second at Texas Motor Speedway. Throughout the course of the race there were nine cautions and thirty-five lead changes among fourteen different drivers.

On the final restart,  caught Hamlin and passed him. Later the same lap, Hamlin reclaimed the position, after Kenseth collided into the wall, prompting him to finish second during the race.  finished third.  managed the fourth position in the closing laps of the race, after starting twentieth on the grid. , from the  team, clinched the fifth position, after leading 223 laps during the race.  followed Biffle in sixth, while  could only manage seventh.

, , and  rounded out the top ten finishers in the race. , another driver in the Chase, finished thirty-seventh. Following the race, Johnson commented, "It was just a long day. I had speed in the car. We worked our way forward and had issues on pit road. ... We gave away so much track position from the beginning. It's tough to get back where we needed to." "The past four years, we've been in a different position," Johnson continued. "I've lost plenty of championships in the past, and this is racing, and it doesn't come easy, and you are not going to get what you want every single year and every single weekend. "I can promise you this — I am trying as hard as I can. I know my team is. We're doing everything we can. Thirty-three points back is not where we want to be, but we're going to work to get back on top."

Hamlin became the Drivers' championship leader with 6,325 points, thirty-three points ahead of Johnson. The Manufacturers' сhampionship standings is led by Chevrolet with 249, 40 points ahead of Toyota and 91 ahead of Ford with two races remaining in the season. 

Looking forward to next , Hamlin said, "I'm going to race  as if I'm 33 behind, to be honest with you. There's no comfortable margin going into Homestead, because anything can happen. So for me — Phoenix being an up-and-down race track for me — I've got to really be focused on practice day to get what I need, to give crew chief  the information that I need — just 100 percent stay focused is all I can do. But like I say, I'm not going to be conservative having the lead. I'm going to want to stretch that out before we get to Homestead. So that's pretty much my mind-set."


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