Kevin Harvick put down another great run Sunday, finishing fifth.  That allowed Harvick to slightly expand his advantage.  He is now 91 points ahead of new second-place man Ryan Blaney.  Blaney won the first two stages, but got trapped a lap down when Quin Houff crashed.  He was able to recover to finish seventh and move up one place in the standings.  Brad Keselowski struggled for much of the day, but ended up front thanks to pit strategy.  A ninth-place finish dropped him to third, though.  Joey Logano is up one place to fourth after finishing third.

Chase Elliott was the only Hendrick Motorsports driver not to wreck Sunday.  However, a 12th-place finish dropped him to fifth.  Denny Hamlin was probably the man who could have challenged Blaney at the front.  Two incidents late in the race dropped him to a 20th-place finish, but he still maintains sixth in the standings.  Martin Truex Jr. wrecked hard on Lap 219, but managed to continue after repairs.  The 29th-place finish keeps him in seventh.  Aric Almirola was dominant early, but got penalized for a blend line violation.  He came back to 10th and stays eighth in points.

Kurt Busch is up one place to ninth after earning 12 stage points and finishing eighth.  Kyle Busch is back up to 10th after going through the grass during the Big One on Lap 219, yet surviving and finishing fourth.  Alex Bowman is down two places to 11th after crashing out late with Hamlin.  Matt DiBenedetto was in position for a great finish until Houff hit him while trying to pit.  Not only did it trap him a lap down, but also damaged the Motorcraft Ford.  A 17th-place finish with no stage points cost DiBenedetto some ground, but he stays in 12th.

Clint Bowyer got a piece of the Big One, but managed to finish 11th and stay in 13th.  Austin Dillon's victory moves him up two places to 14th in points.  Jimmie Johnson crashed early and had to scramble to finish 26th.  It was enough to keep him in the final playoff spot.  He is two points ahead of teammate William Byron, who crashed out in an incident with Ty Dillon and finished 37th.

Tyler Reddick remains in 17th after his career-best second-place finish on Sunday, but made big gains in the points.  Erik Jones is still in 18th after finishing sixth.  Bubba Wallace is 19th after finishing 14th.  The finish could have been better, but he nearly got wrecked on the backstretch with nine laps to go.  Despite getting a piece of the Big One, Chris Buescher finished 19th and moved into sole possession of 20th.  Cole Custer was eliminated in the big crash and dropped to 22nd.

Point Standings (1-16): 1) Kevin Harvick 721, 2) Ryan Blaney -91, 3) Brad Keselowski -106, 4) Joey Logano -114, 5) Chase Elliott -117, 6) Denny Hamlin -143, 7) Martin Truex Jr. -164, 8) Aric Almirola -187, 9) Kurt Busch -188, 10) Kyle Busch -201, 11) Alex Bowman -213, 12) Matt DiBenedetto -245, 13) Clint Bowyer -260, 14) Austin Dillon -293, 15) Jimmie Johnson -294, 16) William Byron -296.

Outside the Top 16, but Still In The Playoffs: 22) Cole Custer -399.

Note No. 1: Drivers in Bold have locked into the playoffs.

Playoff Points: 1) Denny Hamlin 23, 2) Kevin Harvick -1, t-3) Joey Logano -9, t-3) Brad Keselowski -9, 5) Chase Elliott -13, 6) Alex Bowman -14, 7) Ryan Blaney -15, 8) Martin Truex Jr. -16, t-9) Austin Dillon -18, t-9) Cole Custer -18, t-11) Aric Almirola -21, t-11) Clint Bowyer -21, t-11) William Byron -21, t-14) Kurt Busch -22, t-14) Jimmie Johnson -22, t-14) Tyler Reddick -22, t-14) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -22.

Stage Points: 1) Ryan Blaney 187, 2) Chase Elliott -16, 3) Joey Logano -22, 4) Martin Truex Jr. -36, 5) Kevin Harvick -38, 6) Alex Bowman -40, 7) Kyle Busch -73, 8) Brad Keselowski -78, 9) Denny Hamlin -86, 10) Aric Almirola -90, 11) William Byron -109, 12) Matt DiBenedetto -116, 13) Kurt Busch -124, 14) Jimmie Johnson -127, 15) Tyler Reddick -132, 16) Clint Bowyer -133.

Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) Kevin Harvick 648, 2) Brad Keselowski -59, 3) Denny Hamlin -90, 4) Kurt Busch -109, 5) Aric Almirola -131, 6) Ryan Blaney -134, 7) Joey Logano -139, 8) Chase Elliott -143, 9) Kyle Busch -165, 10) Matt DiBenedetto -167, 11) Martin Truex Jr. -168, 12) Clint Bowyer -177, 13) Austin Dillon -198, t-14) Alex Bowman -216, t-14) Tyler Reddick -216, 16) Erik Jones -218.

Outside of the Top 16, But Still In Playoffs: 17) Jimmie Johnson -232, 24) Cole Custer -277.

Race Winners: Denny Hamlin (Daytona, Darlington-2, Homestead, Pocono-2), Joey Logano (Las Vegas, Phoenix), Alex Bowman (Fontana), Kevin Harvick (Darlington-1, Atlanta, Pocono-1, Indianapolis), Brad Keselowski (Charlotte-1, Bristol), Chase Elliott (Charlotte-2), Ryan Blaney (Talladega), Cole Custer (Kentucky), Austin Dillon (Texas)

 
Note: Race wins in Italics do not count towards playoff eligibility.

Chase Briscoe tried to cheat the system, dropping a water bottle out of his car under green to unsuccessfully draw a caution.  Despite that, he still managed a second-place finish.  That allowed him to expand his lead up to 24 points.  That is over the new second-place man, Austin Cindric.  Cindric inherited his third straight victory Saturday afternoon after Kyle Busch was disqualified.  Noah Gragson is down one place to third after crashing out and finishing 30th.  Ross Chastain remains in fourth after a tough day where he fought back from wall contact to finish ninth.

Justin Haley is still in fifth after finishing eighth.  Justin Allgaier won the first two stages, but broke the same blend line rule that burned Aric Almirola on Sunday.  He ended up finishing third and moved up to sixth.  Allgaier passed Harrison Burton, who finished fourth after leading 17 laps.  Michael Annett finished fifth and stays in eighth.

Brandon Jones managed to get off the snide of three straight DNFs due to crashes to finish seventh Saturday and keep the ninth spot.  Riley Herbst crashed out early Saturday, finishing 36th.  He keeps the 10th spot, but is now more than a full race behind Jones.  Ryan Sieg dropped out Saturday due to suspension woes, earning a 29th-place finish.  He's still 11th, but in free fall.  Brandon Brown finished 10th and holds onto the last playoff spot.

Brown's advantage is 31 points over Jeremy Clements, who finished 11th on Saturday.  Myatt Snider got put in the wall by Matt Mills early on, then retired after his second rear bumper of the day flew off.  He's down to 14th in the standings.  Anthony Alfredo is up to 15th, while Jesse Little is 16th. 

Point Standings (1-16): 1) Chase Briscoe 691, 2) Austin Cindric -24, 3) Noah Gragson -48, 4) Ross Chastain -77, 5) Justin Haley -141, 6) Justin Allgaier -146, 7) Harrison Burton -155, 8) Michael Annett -210, 9) Brandon Jones -243, 10) Riley Herbst -314, 11) Ryan Sieg -316, 12) Brandon Brown -343, 13) Jeremy Clements -374, 14) Myatt Snider -381, 15) Anthony Alfredo -391, 16) Jesse Little -394.

Note No. 1: Drivers in Bold have locked into the playoffs.
Note No. 2: Drivers in italics in the point standing sections are currently outside of the playoffs.

Playoff Points: 1) Chase Briscoe 28, 2) Austin Cindric -8, 3) Noah Gragson -10, 4) Harrison Burton -18, t-5) Brandon Jones -21, t-5) Justin Allgaier -21, 7) Justin Haley -22, 8) AJ Allmendinger -23, 9) Ryan Sieg -26, 10) Jeb Burton -27.

Stage Points: 1) Austin Cindric 214, 2) Noah Gragson -23, 3) Chase Briscoe -36, 4) Justin Allgaier -43, 5) Ross Chastain -46, 6) Brandon Jones -92, 7) Harrison Burton -110, 8) Justin Haley -114, 9) Michael Annett -127, 10) Daniel Hemric -136, 11) Ryan Sieg -139, 12) Riley Herbst -161, 13) Anthony Alfredo -174, 14) Jeb Burton -187, 15) Myatt Snider -193, 16) Brandon Brown -200.

Note: If he were eligible for points, Kyle Busch would be 13th in stage points.

Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) Chase Briscoe 586, 2) Ross Chastain -53, 3) Noah Gragson -55, 4) Austin Cindric -57, 5) Justin Haley -72, 6) Harrison Burton -86, 7) Michael Annett -126, 8) Justin Allgaier -135, 9) Brandon Brown -187, 10) Brandon Jones -193, 11) Riley Herbst -202, 12) Jeremy Clements -210, 13) Ryan Sieg -217, 14) Jesse Little -225, 15) Myatt Snider -228, 16) Josh Williams -247.

Note: If he were eligible for points, Brett Moffitt would be 16th in old school points.

Race Winners: Noah Gragson (Daytona, Bristol), Chase Briscoe (Las Vegas, Darlington, Homestead-2, Pocono, Indianapolis), Harrison Burton (Fontana, Homestead-1), Brandon Jones (Phoenix), Kyle Busch (Charlotte), AJ Allmendinger (Atlanta), Justin Haley (Talladega). Austin Cindric (Kentucky-1, Kentucky-2, Texas)

Note: Race wins in Italics do not count towards playoff eligibility.

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.  Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.

Austin Hill struck trouble for the first time this year Saturday night when he had engine trouble and dropped out early.  His lead is down to 22 over new second-place man Ben Rhodes, who finished ninth.  Sheldon Creed had problems early and recovered to finish a lap down in 16th.  That dropped him to third.  Christian Eckes remains in fourth after finishing second Saturday night, but he gained 38 points on Hill.

Zane Smith is now in fifth by himself after finishing 19th and earning 15 stage points.  Brett Moffitt is up two places to sixth after winning a stage and finishing fifth.  Grant Enfinger dealt with issues under the hood en route to an eighth-place finish.  That dropped him to seventh.  Tyler Ankrum is up one place to eighth after finishing sixth.

Todd Gilliland crashed out late and finished 27th, dropping him to ninth in points.  Meanwhile, Matt Crafton overcame two battery changes to finish third, getting into the top 10 for the first time all season.  Derek Kraus is the first driver outside of the playoffs, 11 points behind Crafton.  Johnny Sauter blew his engine early and fell into a tie for 12th with Stewart Friesen, who finished a season-best fourth.

Tanner Gray had transmission problems early and finished 36th.  This dropped him one place to 14th in the standings.  Raphael Lessard is still in 15th after finishing 12th, while Ty Majeski is 16th.

Point Standings (1-16): 1) Austin Hill 300, 2) Ben Rhodes -22, 3) Sheldon Creed -32, 4) Christian Eckes -33, 5) Zane Smith -46, 6) Brett Moffitt -47, 7) Grant Enfinger -48, 8) Tyler Ankrum -52, 9) Todd Gilliland -66, 10) Matt Crafton -75, 11) Derek Kraus -86, t-12) Johnny Sauter -97, t-12) Stewart Friesen -97, 14) Tanner Gray -123, 15) Raphael Lessard -132, 16) Ty Majeski -146. 

Note No. 1: Drivers in bold have locked into the Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series playoffs.

Note No. 2: Drivers in italics in the point standing sections are not in the playoffs.

Playoff Points: 1) Grant Enfinger 11, 2) Sheldon Creed -3, t-3) Zane Smith -10, t-3) Brett Moffitt -10.

Stage Points: 1) Christian Eckes 81, 2) Ben Rhodes -6, 3) Austin Hill -18, 4) Tyler Ankrum -20, 5) Zane Smith -26, 6) Brett Moffitt -28, 7) Grant Enfinger -30, 8) Matt Crafton -32, 9) Sheldon Creed -35, 10) Todd Gilliland -37, 11) Johnny Sauter -52, 12) Raphael Lessard -58, 13) Derek Kraus -60, 14) Stewart Friesen -63, 15) Tanner Gray -72, 16) Ty Majeski -75.

Note: If everyone were eligible for stage points, Kyle Busch would be fourth while Ross Chastain would be sixth. Chase Elliott would be in 14th.

Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) Austin Hill 204, 2) Sheldon Creed -9, 3) Ben Rhodes -19, t-4) Zane Smith -32, t-4) Brett Moffitt -32, 6) Derek Kraus -33, 7) Grant Enfinger -34, t-8) Christian Eckes -46, t-8) Todd Gilliland -46, 10) Tyler Ankrum -48, t-11) Johnny Sauter -50, t-11) Stewart Friesen -50, 13) Matt Crafton -58, 14) Tanner Gray -68, 15) Ty Majeski -88, 16) Raphael Lessard -90.

Note: If they were eligible for points, Ross Chastain would be fourth in Old School points, while Kyle Busch would be 14th.

Race Winners: Grant Enfinger (Daytona, Atlanta), Kyle Busch (Las Vegas, Homestead), Chase Elliott (Charlotte), Brandon Jones (Pocono), Sheldon Creed (Kentucky)

Note: Race wins in Italics do not count towards playoff eligibility.

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.

"Not bad for a silver spoon kid, right? I’ll take that. Have to thank everyone at RCR, ECR, Bass Pro Shops. Tyler Reddick, he raced me clean. 1-2 for RCR – this has been coming. We’ve had good cars all year. Justin Alexander and my whole crew. I got my baby Ace back home and my wife, I love them so much. I’m just so happy – thank god." - Austin Dillon, race winner

"What a great day for Richard Childress Racing. This organization is working so hard and to have a 1-2 finish like we did is incredible. It felt like we had everything happen to our No. 8 Cat Oil and Gas Chevrolet, but strategy was king today. We had good speed overall and earned some stage points at the end of the first stage, but we got shuffled back for the majority of the second stage when we took two right side tires. That really messed with the handling of our Chevrolet and trapped us a lap down for a while. There were a couple major wrecks later in Stage 3 that we were able to miss and that helped us get our lap back to be able to contend at the end. My crew chief, Randall Burnett, made a great call to take fuel only during the caution with about 30 laps to go and that put us up front for those final restarts with our teammate, Austin Dillon. We really couldn’t ask for much more than what we got today. One spot better would have been great, but the recovery this No. 8 Cat Oil and Gas team made today was huge. We’re racing for the big picture of making the playoffs, so we have to race smart. Days like this will help us get there." - Tyler Reddick, finished second

"Air-pressure. Air is what cost us there. Air-pressure in the tires, just on the splitter too much firing off. It took us 15 laps to get rolling. Our long run speed was incredible, but it took too long and the guys up front were smart, they put fuel only and kept their car off the splitter in three and four over the bumps and maintained the clean air and just couldn’t do it. I could make runs, but I’d get to three and four and start chattering up the racetrack and had these big moments. Overall, I’m proud of what the Shell/Pennzoil Ford team did today, scoring a second-place in the second stage and a third in the finish. It’s not a win, especially when you come to Texas and all the fans here. Thank you guys for coming out, but it’s not the win we were hoping for as I look at the fire in Victory Lane is super-cool, but it’s progress. We’ve had a little rough streak on these 550 [horsepower] races, so I’ll take it as a little bit of a momentum-builder." - Joey Logano, finished third

"Yeah, good finish and proud of the effort. We came a long way today. We got a lot of damage on the frontend of the car that you can’t see with the eye. Going through the grass, it killed it. I thought early on in the first stage, second stage maybe that we had a second-place car and then as the day went, we just kept getting further and further behind. Still a lot of work to do. The car didn’t drive very good at all. Just was able to get something out of nothing there at the end. Thanks to Interstate Batteries, M&M’s, Toyota, TRD, Rowdy Energy – we’ll go to Kansas." - Kyle Busch, finished fourth

"It was kind of a weird day. I thought the Craftsman Camry was decent all day long and had good speed at times when we could get some clean air and make some passes here and there. It was kind of a struggle to make some of those passes. It was challenging there towards the end with the short runs and the restarts. Our car really took 15 laps or so to get rolling so that kind of hurt us at the end, but we’ll take it. Sixth place isn’t too bad. We needed a solid run and mistake free and that’s what we did. I thought coming into this race if we could just go in and have no mistakes and have decent speed we could run top-five and we came real close to that. We have to keep doing that. Obviously, we need to get some points, especially with two winners the last two weeks that have been from outside the Playoff picture. That kind of changes things for us. We’ll keep rolling, but a decent day for us." - Erik Jones, finished sixth

"It was a strong start to the day. We were able to start on the front row and get the lead there. We pitted on the competition caution, which I thought was a good call, and that inherited us the lead later and was able to win us that stage with just being fast and being able to make up all the time. Then we were able to do the same thing in the second stage, and I thought we had a good strategy for the last stage and the caution came out maybe eight to ten laps before all the other guys that were on the different strategy would have had to pit, so that just stunk. We had to take the wave around and lined up 15th or something and could only get back to seventh in that short amount of time. It’s a disappointing finish, for sure. We had a dominant car all day, especially on long runs, but really proud of that and just unfortunate with the way it ended for us." - Ryan Blaney, finished seventh

"We had one of our best points days so far this season with the Monster Energy Camaro. We scored stage points in the first and second stages, followed by another top-10 result. I really battled a loose handling car all day, it was really difficult on the restarts and short-runs, so I really had to work my butt off there at the end with all the cautions." - Kurt Busch, finished eighth

"We started off really struggling and took us a little while to figure out what was wrong and about a little before halfway we made some adjustments and the car was just hitting the racetrack really bad and I couldn’t make any speed. I had to slow down a bunch in the corners, so we worked on that under yellow and kind of gave up our track position working on it and was able to work the cycle to get back up towards the lead, but still didn’t quite have enough speed. So we worked on it again some more and got up to right about fifth and sixth and that was about all we had. We ended up the last restart and got the bottom lane and fell back a spot or two to I think ninth, but, all in all, a decent finish. It’s not the day we were hoping for, but a decent finish and we keep piling in on the top 10s and top fives, which is a good feeling. Our strategy has been really good. Jeremy and I are really clicking on all of those things, just looking to be a little bit faster. If we can combine our execution with a little more speed, we’re gonna be a serious threat to win week in and week out. We’re just not quite there yet." - Brad Keselowski, finished ninth

"That was not the way that we needed to finish Texas. We struggled some, but overall, our ChevyGoods.com/Adam’s Polishes team was good today. Our team worked really hard on the car today and the changes during our pit stops. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we will move on to Kansas this week." - Alex Bowman, finished 30th (Crashed out)

"Honestly, it’s going to be tough [to make the playoffs]. We just have to find speed first. We’re not really running good at all and we’ve got to figure that out. Obviously, [Ty Dillon] got up into us there and took us out, but we were pretty far back anyway. Thanks to Axalta and everybody on the team. We’ve just got to figure it out and figure it out quick before the fall." - William Byron, finished 37th (Crashed out)

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.  Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.