Wednesday, November 10th 'What If' Question

According to some NASCAR fans and media, there will be no topping what happened at the Texas Motor Speedway last Sunday night. There were fights, fingers and words flown toward NASCAR, a pit crew swap in the middle of the event, a new points leader and an exciting race to the finish.

Denny Hamlin made it clear that when there were three races left in the Chase for the Championship he was going to put his No. 11 FedEx Toyota in high gear. The first stop was Texas where he won earlier this year just a week removed from knee surgery. Sunday he would need to again come from the back of the field and do his best to keep Jimmie Johnson in his rear view mirror if he wanted to close the point gap.

Mission accomplished and much more.

Hamlin started 30th and spent the night tuning on his machine and making sure he didn't panic. Call it experience from past Chase years. Soon, he was the one to beat and was running away from the field with 10 laps remaining as Johnson tried to hang onto a top 10 finish.

With seven laps remaining the dreaded caution came out and Hamlin would have to fight one more time. During the green-white-checkered finish Matt Kenseth got a great restart and drove past Hamlin coming off turn two. Kenseth got back in the throttle too quick and slide up the track which allowed Hamlin to get back around and get to the checkered flag first. For Hamlin it was his eighth win of the 2010 season and second in the Chase. More importantly, he's also the new point leader with two races to go.

But ...

What if Matt Kenseth didn't get loose off turn two on last lap ... who gets to the checkered flag: him or does Hamlin run him down?

@lydiascats Denny'd still win.

@Matt_Kacar kenseth because he was on the outside and the car on outside always gets the run on the backstretch

@cruetten I think @dennyhamlin would've still passed him for the win

@RoushGirl17 Kenseth! I was watching the times and he was catching him before the caution. I think he could have out run him.

@StrokerAce90 I would say Matt Kenseth would have won, he had the speed in the end. It's too bad he got loose.

@nascarjaj i think denny would have won, because he had more than enough momentum to at least get inside of matt

@dhammis @dennyhamlin runs him down for sure. He had a strong car, esp after that last pit stop.