By: Tyler Ward
In a rather dominating performance, Matt Kenseth won at Texas for his first win in 76 races.
Kenseth led 169 of the 334 laps and clinched his 19th career Sprint Cup victory.
He last won at Texas in 2002 and since then, Kenseth has posted four runner-up finishes, along with six other top-ten finishes.
But late in the race, Kenseth's hopes of winning seemed bleak.
Luckily for the Wisconsin native, he was trailing only Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch before they had to make pit stops while trying to stretch out their fuel mileage.
With 13 laps to go, Kyle Busch pitted, giving up his 8.2-second lead.
Kenseth took the lead and finished 8.3 seconds ahead of runner-up Clint Bowyer.
The weekend ended well for Jack Roush, the owner of Kenseth's car, along with three others.
Teammate Carl Edwards won the Nationwide Series race on Friday night, and Kenseth dominated on Saturday night.
All four of Roush's car finished in the top seven spots. Kenseth won the race, Edwards finished third with Greg Biffle right behind him, and David Ragan ended up placing seventh.
With the win, Kenseth became the track's all-time laps led leader with 669 in 18 career starts.
Kenseth, Bowyer, Edwards, Biffle, and Paul Menard rounded out the top five. Marcos Ambrose finished sixth, Ragan placed in seventh. Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Kurt Busch rounded out the top ten.
Denny Hamlin finished 15th and Kevin Harvick, who had won the two previous races, finished in 20th.
The race was the first of the season under the lights and was also the first in the track's 21-race history.
Carl Edwards is currently the points leader and just nine points ahead of Kyle Busch in the standings. Kenseth and reigning champion Jimmie Johnson are tied for third, thirteen points behind. Kurt Busch is now in fifth.
NASCAR will now go to Talladega next week.
