Tony Stewart, driver of the #14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet, celebrates in Victory Lane after he won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on Nov. 6, 2011, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)Photo Gallery from the NASCAR® Events at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, November 6th, 2011

by Reid Spencer (Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service)
Tony Stewart backed up his smack talk with a convincing victory in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, the eighth race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

With his fourth victory in the Chase and the 43rd of his career, Stewart put a dent in runner-up Carl Edwards’ series lead, scoring maximum points (48) to trim Edwards’ advantage from eight to three points with two races left in the season.

After winning last week at Martinsville, Stewart promised Edwards a sleepless three weeks during the stretch run for the title. On Sunday afternoon, Stewart let his car do the talking, taking the lead from Edwards on a Lap 275 restart and coming back to the front through a cycle of green-flag pit stops late in the race.

"I don’t think we have to say anything," Stewart said in victory lane. "I think our performance today spoke for itself. He knows we’re there—trust me. … Carl kept us honest today. We got all the bonus points we could get and we got the win, so we gained more than we needed to gain on the average for the week.

"It doesn’t take much right now. It’s one spot, if a guy wins the race. We’re doing exactly what we need to do. I’m really confident right now."

Stewart didn’t regain the lead until Lap 330 of 334, when Jeff Burton lost his fuel-mileage gamble and ran out of gas with just over four laps left.

Photo Gallery from the NASCAR® Events at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, November 6th, 2011 - Click for Full Gallery

Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M's Toyota, sits on the M&M's Pit Box after being parked by NASCAR for the Sprint Cup Series AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on Nov. 6, 2011, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Trevor Bayne, driver of the #16 RickyVsTrevor.com Ford, celebrates with a burnout after winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway on Nov. 5, 2011, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne finally got his first victory in NASCAR's second-tier series.

By Sporting News Wire Service
Bayne powered past Roush Fenway teammate Carl Edwards after a restart on Lap 194 of 200 and held off hard-charging Denny Hamlin for the win Saturday's O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Bayne crossed the finish line .142 seconds ahead of Hamlin, who started from the rear of the field after Kyle Busch, scheduled to drive the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, was parked for the weekend for wrecking Ron Hornaday Jr. in Friday night's Truck Series race.

Edwards, who dominated the event until the final caution flew on Lap 189, after Jason Leffler scraped the Turn 4 wall, came home third, followed by Clint Bowyer and Brad Keselowski.

Series leader Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished sixth and expanded his margin to 17 points over pole-sitter Elliott Sadler, who finished ninth.

Danica Patrick ran 11th in her first Nationwide start since Oct. 8 at Kansas and Kenny Wallace finished 13th in his series-record 520th start.

Bayne's victory enabled Ford to clinch the Nationwide Series manufacturer's championship.

Kevin Harvick, driver of the #2 Hunt Brothers Pizza Chevrolet, poses in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series WinStar World Casino 350k at Texas Motor Speedway on Nov. 4, 2011, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)Dillon extends points lead as Hornaday crashes and Buescher runs out of fuel

by NASCAR.com Media PR
Kevin Harvick dominated at Texas Motor Speedway and held on in a green-white-checkered finish to win the WinStar World Casino 350k and clinch the Truck Series' owners championship. But all anyone wanted to talk about was what happened early in the race.

On Lap 13. Kyle Busch and Ron Hornaday were racing hard for a top-five position and both Busch and Hornaday got into the wall as they got three-wide with Johnny Chapman, who was a lap down. However, both cars were raceable as the caution came out. But under the caution, Busch rode the rear bumper of Hornaday all the way into the corner, eventually sending Hornaday hard into the wall and destroying both trucks.

Busch was parked and called to the NASCAR hauler after the race while Hornaday went from 15 points behind points leader Austin Dillon to mathematically eliminated from contention.

James Buescher, who was just 11 points behind Dillon coming into Texas, had a chance at the victory He was second to Harvick on the final restart, but under caution before the green dropped, Buescher ran out of fuel and went multiple laps down. Buescher is now 28 points back.

The big winner in all of this was Dillon, who opened up a huge points lead with one race remaining. Dillon finished second to Harvick and extended his points lead to 20. Ty Dillon finished third followed by Nelson Piquet Jr. and Matt Crafton.

Johnny Sauter struggled to a seventh-place finish, although he did move up to second in the points standings.

Clint Bowyer celebrates winning the Good Sam Club 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, his second straight fall win at the track. (Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)by Reid Spencer (Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service)
It was a swan song for a lame duck. Clint Bowyer surged past Richard Childress Racing teammate Jeff Burton through the tri-oval on the final lap at Talladega Superspeedway to win Sunday’s Good Sam Club 500.

Bowyer, who will leave RCR for Michael Waltrip Racing next season, beat Burton to the finish line by .018 seconds to record his first victory of the season and the fifth of his career.

Dave Blaney, pushed by Brad Keselowski, ran third, with Keselowski taking the flag in fourth in a race that saw only five drivers in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup finish in the top 24.

Red Bull Racing teammates Brian Vickers and Kasey Kahne finished fifth and six, followed by Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, Michael Waltrip and Martin Truex Jr. Carl Edwards came home 11th and extended his lead in the Chase to 14 points over Matt Kenseth, who finished 18th.

A six-car wreck on Lap 104 did major damage to the Chase chances of Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch. As the lead pack of cars sped through the tri-oval, a push from Marcos Ambrose turned Richard Petty Motorsports teammate AJ Allmendinger, triggering a crash that crumpled the hood of Harvick’s Chevrolet and knocked in the driver’s side of Busch’s Toyota.

Harvick lost two laps during multiple pit stops to repair his car, and Busch spent 11 laps in the garage before bringing his hobbled car back on track on Lap 118.

Two early incidents broke up potent drafting combinations. On Lap 67, Joey Logano spun off Turn 4 in close quarters with Trevor Bayne, who was trying to get to pit road. Before Logano could complete another lap, his left front tire exploded, destroying the left front fender of his Toyota.

That left Busch, who had been drafting with Logano, to pair up with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Hamlin, a prospect considered so unlikely before the race that the organization hadn’t established radio channels that would allow Busch, Hamlin and their spotters and crew chiefs to communicate freely.

by Kyle Luetters
David Gravel was able to do something in the Sage Fruit Showdown at the Talladega Short Track that no one else has been able to do in the last five World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series. Gravel ended Jason Meyers winning streak at five as the Watertown, Conn. grabbed his first career victory at the 1/3rd mile, high banked oval.

“This is just unbelievable,” said Gravel. “I just needed to be patient when it came to passing Jason. We had a really good car all night long and the bottom seemed to work really well for us. I knew I wanted to get clear of him before I got into lap traffic. We passed a lot of big names tonight. It’s still just so surreal. We are just winding down our season and this is our first 410 win of the season. We’ve got the World Finals coming up which is a huge event so we’re certainly looking forward to that.”

Meyers started the night’s 35 lap event from the pole position and led early. As the race neared it’s halfway point, Gravel’s patience proved to be key. Using the low groove, Gravel slid by Meyers on lap 14 and never looked back.

“We just missed a bit on our setup tonight,” said Meyers, who will be on SPEED TV’s “Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain,” this Sunday evening at 8 P.M. EST. ”Five out of six races won isn’t bad but seven of eight sounds even better. We’re really looking forward to the World Finals.”

NASCAR star Tony Stewart had his hands full battling the two machines he owns, the #15 STP/Armor All/Chevrolet of Donny Schatz and the #11 Bass Pro Shops/J.D. Byrider/Chevrolet of Steve Kinser. The three Tony Stewart Racing cars duked it inside the top-5 for most of the race with Schatz eventually emerging as the top finishing TSR car.