Jimmie Johnson continued his mastery of Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, winning his third straight race and fifth in his last seven starts on the Fort Worth oval. In the process, Johnson denied Brad Keselowski automatic advancement into the next round of the post-season Chase. Keselowski started from the pole and led 312 of the 334 laps run. A win would have put him into The Championship Four with Jeff Gordon at the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 400 on November 22nd.

Instead, Keselowski had to settle for second place and is now nineteen points below the fourth-place cutoff with one event remaining in the Eliminator Round – next weekend at Phoenix International Raceway. Johnson, who was eliminated from championship contention last month at Dover, made his winning pass Sunday four laps from the finish with the Number-48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet beating the 2012 champion to the checkered flag by one second. Kevin Harvick finished third with Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards completing the top five. Title contenders filled seven of the top nine spots in the final running order with Kurt Busch seventh, Martin Truex Junior eighth and Gordon ninth.

Joey Logano’s rotten post-season luck continued. He was wrecked by Matt Kenseth while leading late in last weekend’s race at Martinsville Speedway and finished thirty-seventh. Sunday, Logano cut a left-rear tire early in the race which caused major damage to the Number-22 Team Penske Ford. Repairs were made and Logano ran to the finish, though he was sixty-six laps down to Johnson and was credited with fortieth place.

He’s now sixty-three points outside the top four and facing a must-win situation at Phoenix to keep his title hopes alive.