Martin Truex Jr. led a race-high 141 laps but saw his chances of winning slip away late after not pitting during a caution with about 45 laps to go.
He maintained the lead until lap 302 of the 334-lap race on older tires before Kyle Busch got by on the way to his second consecutive win.
Truex finished sixth.
Crew chief Cole Pearn made the call not to pit after the caution came out on Lap 289.
“I was hoping more cars would have stayed out, but when you have the dominant car that’s the only chance they have to beat you,” Pearn said. “By staying out and leading, we felt that having clean air would be an equalizer. But in that situation it’s easier to make the call when you’re running second and not first. We’ve seen this happen many times in NASCAR when the race leader is sometimes in a no-win situation. It was a bummer to finish where we did tonight.”
Said Truex: “The final caution really hurt us. When the race restarted for the final time we just didn’t have the grip everybody else had. We were just sliding around.
“It’s frustrating, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I am proud of my guys for the race car they brought here to Texas — it was fast all night. It hurts not to have won this race, but we’ll have other opportunities.”
