[5] Before the race, Jimmie Johnson led the Drivers' Championship with 777 points, and Greg Biffle stood in second with 776.

Ryan Newman (who was battling the flu and wasn't sure he would be able to race; Stewart-Haas had David Reutimann on standby[10]) was seventh, still within four-tenths of a second of Johnson's time.

[13] Trevor Bayne, Truex Jr., Marcos Ambrose, Landon Cassill and Paul Menard rounded out the top ten.

After restarting on Lap 10, Martin would once again easily retain the lead and build another substantial gap to the second place car.

Following a long green-flag run, Martin would continue to lead while having to deal with an ever-increasing amount of lapped traffic.

The force of the impact would also cause several tires and other debris stationed on the wall to go flying back into the garage area.

Luckily, track and safety officials were quick on the scene to extinguish any flames and no one, including Martin, suffered any injuries.

The race would restart on Lap 74 with Clint Bowyer taking a short-lived lead before another caution would fly after a crash from Regan Smith due to contact from Marcos Ambrose.

A fourth caution would come out after Joey Logano hit the wall after a tire failure from contact with Montoya.

Attrition and the long runs would also begin to take their toll as both Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon would exit the race with engine failures.

Lap 182 would see the #21 car of Trevor Bayne sustain a tire failure and hit the wall in Turn 1, bringing out another caution and setting up a just over ten-lap sprint to the finish.

Johnson, cruising to a seemingly assured win, would then suffer an engine failure (much like those of Stewart and Gordon) with only five laps to go.