This was the 75th career victory for Johnson, fifth of the season, sixth at Texas Motor Speedway and eighth at the track for Hendrick Motorsports.

The track measures 1.5 miles (2.4 km) around and is banked 24 degrees in the turns, and is of the oval design, where the front straightaway juts outward slightly.

[16] On the Tuesday after the 2015 Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500, NASCAR suspended Matt Kenseth for two races for his role in the incident that took out Joey Logano.

[17] According to NASCAR Executive Vice-President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O'Donnell, Kenseth "eliminated the No.

Additionally, we factored aspects of safety into our decision, and also the fact that the new Chase elimination format puts a premium on each and every race.

"[19] On the Thursday before this weekend's race, the National Motorsports Appeals Panel upheld the original penalty levied by NASCAR.

[20] Later that day, National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer Bryan Moss upheld the two race suspension, but amended the probation penalty to conclude on December 31 instead of in six months.

On the Thursday before the race, the hauler carrying the primary and backup cars for HScott Motorsports's Michael Annett caught fire on Interstate 20 west of Longview, Texas.

[25] However, it was unable to make it to the track prior to the garage opening at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time Friday, so Annett used the backup car of teammate Justin Allgaier to race this weekend.

With Kenseth being parked by NASCAR, Erik Jones made his second career Sprint Cup Series start in the No.

That’s where we need to be at the end of the day and carry on that momentum and go into Phoenix and hope for another solid day there.”[30] Joey Logano, who qualified fourth, said while he doesn't "think we are bad in race trim...I do think we have a little bit of work to do there, so I am anxious to get at that tomorrow and get to work on it and find a little bit more speed for Sunday.

We're always working hard to find the right combination and I am hopeful that our car will perform better in race trim during tomorrow's two practice sessions.

"[30] Under clear blue Texas skies, Brad Keselowski led the field to the green flag at 2:21 p.m. After the first 10 laps, he pulled to a second and a half lead over Kevin Harvick.

Ryan Blaney suffered a right-front tire blowout and slammed the wall in turn 1 and would go on to finish 43rd.

Aric Almirola was tagged for having too many crew members over the wall and restarted the race from the tail-end of the field.

[38] After the race, crew chief Rodney Childers said that the car "had that left-rear go down and automatically you panic and think it was self-inflicted like maybe we didn’t have enough air in it, that kind of thing.

Ryan Newman made an unscheduled stop at lap 146 after cutting down his left-rear tire exiting turn 2.

Kasey Kahne was tagged for speeding on pit road and restarted the race from the tail-end of the field.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was tagged for having too many crew members over the wall and restarted the race from the tail-end of the field.

Joey Logano was tagged for speeding on pit road and restarted the race from the tail-end of the field.

Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards kicked off a cycle of green flag stops with 84 laps to go.

Denny Hamlin was tagged for speeding on pit road and was forced to serve a drive-through penalty.

If we can go out there and win, sure, we’d love to win.”[47] After finishing seventh, Kurt Busch said that his race "was good, hard fought battle with limited practice.

We got seventh today so we will take it.”[48] Following an eighth–place finish, Martin Truex Jr. said that he "thought we had a shot at it (the win) and the right-front wheel started shaking real bad and got tight.

"[49] Sitting fourth in the standings six–points back of the lead, he said it certainly helped that "[t]he 2 didn't win the race...I was cheering for Jimmie Johnson pretty hard.

"[49] Speaking on a ninth–place finish, Jeff Gordon – who's locked into the championship race following his win at Martinsville the week before – said he "thought we learned a lot this weekend.

We worked hard all day to really keep the thing balanced and good and strong.”[51] NBC covered the race on the television side.

Rick Allen, two–time Texas winner Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte had the call in the booth for the race.

Dave Burns, Mike Massaro, Marty Snider and Kelli Stavast handled pit road on the television side.

Brad Gillie, Brett McMillan, Jim Noble and Steve Richards handled pit road on the radio side.