Contested over 400 laps on the three–quarter (1.2 km) short track, it was the 26th race of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.

This was the 35th career victory for Matt Kenseth, fourth of the season, second at Richmond International Raceway and 10th at the track for Joe Gibbs Racing.

With the win, Kenseth moved into a tie with Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson for the points lead after the Chase reset.

The Federated Auto Parts 400 was carried by NBC Sports on the cable/satellite NBCSN network for the American television audience.

[12] Greg Biffle, Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon, A. J. Allmendinger, Casey Mears, Danica Patrick, Tony Stewart, David Ragan, Sam Hornish Jr., Trevor Bayne, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Justin Allgaier had to win this race to clinch a spot in the Chase.

[12] The entry list for the Federated Auto Parts 400 was released on Monday, September 7 at 1:05 p.m. Eastern time.

[14] Kevin Harvick was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 21.526 and a speed of 125.430 mph (201.860 km/h).

“I can’t say enough of (crew chief) Todd Gordon and everyone with the Shell/Pennzoil team that gives me a these greats cars every week.

It’d be great to end the regular season with the win here Saturday night and take that momentum into the Chase next week at Chicago.”[16] “We’re the best on stickers,” Matt Kenseth said of his tires after qualifying second.

[17] Under mostly cloudy evening Virginia skies, Joey Logano led the field to the green flag at 7:57 p.m.[18] He shot ahead of Matt Kenseth to lead the first lap.

The first caution of the race flew on lap 37 when Martin Truex Jr. slammed the wall in turn 1.

To add insult to injury, he was tagged for speeding on pit road and was forced to restart from the tail-end of the field.

After five laps, the entire Joe Gibbs Racing team ran first, second, third, fourth and pulled away from the field.

Under the caution, McDowell collided with one of the service trucks and tore off his entire rear bumper.

Everybody jumped on the brakes and I just didn’t have time to react.”[22] Keselowski and Jamie McMurray were both tagged for speeding on pit road and restarted from the tail-end of the field.

We have a really, really good race team and am disappointed we didn’t get Smithfield and Ford into the Chase again.”[25] “I wasn’t limited in the car at all,” Denny Hamlin said after finishing sixth with a torn right ACL.

I’m sure it swelled again at the end of the race, and that’s why I’m as stiff as I am.”[26] “The car…..I was a little nervous, we were hovering around 21st, we made a slight adjustment and boom we started going to the front,” Jeff Gordon explained after finishing seventh.

Excited we finally had a solid night on pit road, on the racetrack, in the race car, communication.

I think Junior is probably the best in our stable right now and he proved that again tonight (fifth), but we work hard together to try to improve for each of us, and if we continue to do that, we'll make gains.

"[28] "We ran about where we typically do here at Richmond, which is right around the top 10," Kyle Larson said after finishing 12th and missing the Chase.

That's where we've struggled pretty much all year long was being consistent, so we'll try and work hard at that and try and finish strong.

We’ve got the ability to go back and look at video, which we do, and in this case made the call and moved on from it.

If we have to get involved and make those calls with more video, I think we’ll do that, but we’d still like to see it play out the way it does through the final 10.

They docked [Ryan] Blaney the other night [three weeks prior in the Truck Series race at Bristol] for the same thing.

[32] "First, we start with conversations with the driver, spotter and the crew chief immediately following the race.

We've got training that goes into this prior to the race where we meet with all the track safety and cleanup workers.

During his appearance on The Morning Drive, O'Donnell also addressed Michael McDowell colliding with a service truck on the backstretch during the fifth caution of the race.

[34] He said that NASCAR had "conversations with the driver, spotter and the crew chief immediately following the race" and that they would "debrief with those folks [track safety and cleanup workers]...[,] see what they saw and look to not have that happen in the future.

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

Alex Hayden, Winston Kelley and Steve Post worked pit road on the radio side.