| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 7 of 36 in the2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series season | |||
 2007 Samsung 500 program cover | |||
| Date | April 15, 2007 (2007-04-15) | ||
| Location | Texas Motor Speedway,Fort Worth,Texas | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 1.5 miles (2.414 km) | ||
| Distance | 334 laps, 501 mi (806.281 km) | ||
| Weather | Temperatures reaching up to 71.1 °F (21.7 °C); wind speeds up to 8.9 miles per hour (14.3 km/h)[1] | ||
| Average speed | 143.359 miles per hour (230.714 km/h) | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver |
| ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Jeff Gordon | Hendrick Motorsports | |
| Laps | 173 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 31 | Jeff Burton | Richard Childress | |
| Television in the United States | |||
| Network | Fox | ||
| Announcers | Mike Joy,Darrell Waltrip andLarry McReynolds | ||
The2007 Samsung 500, the seventh race of the2007 Nextel Cup Series, was held on Sunday, April 15 of that year at the 1.5-mileTexas Motor Speedway inFort Worth, Texas. The race was won by Jeff Burton ofRichard Childress Racing.Jeff Gordon would lead the most laps with 173 laps led.
Hendrick Motorsports was shooting for its fifth consecutive win as a team. The last team to accomplish this feat was Petty Enterprises in 1971. HMS driverJeff Gordon started from pole as qualifying was rained out. The race itself featured many attritions, including a hard first lap crash involvingDavid Ragan,J. J. Yeley, andRicky Rudd. Gordon dominated the early part of the race until a pit mistake forced him to lose the lead. November Texas winnerTony Stewart struggled throughout the day, first being spun out after contact with rookieJuan Pablo Montoya, and being hit byJimmie Johnson in the driver's side, and spun again later. However,Dale Earnhardt Jr., who got his first cup win at Texas, slowed to avoid the spinning Stewart, but was hit from behind byKyle Busch, who was traveling over 30 mph faster. In the end, the race came down to formerTexas Motor Speedway winners and ex-teammates Matt Kenseth and Jeff Burton. Burton attempted many times to pass Kenseth low, but he held the top spot. On the last lap, however, Burton was able to get underneath and clear Kenseth off turn 2 and hold him off to become the first repeat winner of a Cup series event held at the speedway.
While Burton won his second race, being the first repeat winner, still the past twelve races have been won by twelve different drivers, and it was the fourth different winning team at Texas Motor Speedway in the past four races (Roush, Evernham, Gibbs, Childress), with the past three teams winning at Texas winning for the first time.
On lap 288,Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s engine blew up, forcing him to retire. Meanwhile,Kyle Busch, who was also wrecked was out, but the team still wanted to compete until the end. However, Busch was nowhere to be found as he had already left the speedway. Therefore, a crew member from Busch's team asked Earnhardt Jr. if he would drive the rest of the laps to finish the car. Earnhardt agreed, and would ride the last 10 laps in Kyle Busch's No. 5 car owned byRick Hendrick.[2] Earnhardt Jr. said of the incident "I’ll always jump at a chance to climb into someone else’s car to see what it’s like. They used to do that all the time back in the day. You’d have relief drivers getting into someone’s car almost every week, so it was kinda like a step back into NASCAR history or something. Old school! It was cool.”[3]
Earnhardt signed a contract with Hendrick one month after the race. Busch signed a contract to go to Joe Gibbs Racing to drive the No. 18 car.
| Fin | St | Driver | Car No. | Make | Points | Bonus | Laps | Winnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | Jeff Burton | 31 | Chevrolet | 190 | 5 | 334 | $526,766 |
| 2 | 4 | Matt Kenseth | 17 | Ford | 175 | 5 | 334 | $357,266 |
| 3 | 6 | Mark Martin | 01 | Chevrolet | 165 | 334 | $275,583 | |
| 4 | 1 | Jeff Gordon | 24 | Chevrolet | 170 | 10 | 334 | $255,811 |
| 5 | 13 | Jamie McMurray | 26 | Ford | 155 | 334 | $173,325 | |
| 6 | 21 | Greg Biffle | 16 | Ford | 150 | 334 | $160,125 | |
| 7 | 24 | Martin Truex Jr. | 1 | Chevrolet | 146 | 334 | $164,945 | |
| 8 | 16 | Juan Montoya * | 42 | Dodge | 142 | 334 | $168,375 | |
| 9 | 7 | Denny Hamlin | 11 | Chevrolet | 138 | 334 | $143,100 | |
| 10 | 14 | David Stremme | 40 | Dodge | 134 | 334 | $130,175 | |
| 11 | 17 | Kurt Busch | 2 | Dodge | 135 | 5 | 334 | $157,233 |
| 12 | 10 | Carl Edwards | 99 | Ford | 127 | 334 | $129,975 | |
| 13 | 27 | Tony Raines | 96 | Chevrolet | 124 | 334 | $131,325 | |
| 14 | 36 | Brian Vickers | 83 | Toyota | 126 | 5 | 334 | $114,325 |
| 15 | 42 | Paul Menard * | 15 | Chevrolet | 118 | 333 | $113,325 | |
| 16 | 8 | Clint Bowyer | 7 | Chevrolet | 115 | 333 | $123,775 | |
| 17 | 15 | Elliott Sadler | 19 | Dodge | 117 | 5 | 333 | $131,870 |
| 18 | 25 | Joe Nemechek | 13 | Chevrolet | 109 | 333 | $108,325 | |
| 19 | 30 | David Gilliland | 38 | Ford | 106 | 332 | $137,639 | |
| 20 | 34 | Kasey Kahne | 9 | Dodge | 103 | 332 | $154,816 | |
| 21 | 40 | Dave Blaney | 22 | Toyota | 100 | 332 | $137,033 | |
| 22 | 35 | Johnny Sauter | 70 | Chevrolet | 97 | 332 | $102,325 | |
| 23 | 33 | Casey Mears | 25 | Chevrolet | 94 | 332 | $113,175 | |
| 24 | 23 | Robby Gordon | 7 | Ford | 96 | 5 | 332 | $102,625 |
| 25 | 9 | Tony Stewart | 20 | Chevrolet | 88 | 332 | $146,861 | |
| 26 | 31 | Jeff Green | 66 | Chevrolet | 85 | 332 | $121,683 | |
| 27 | 39 | Scott Riggs | 10 | Dodge | 82 | 331 | $105,925 | |
| 28 | 22 | Bobby Labonte | 43 | Dodge | 79 | 331 | $133,261 | |
| 29 | 11 | Kevin Harvick | 29 | Chevrolet | 76 | 331 | $140,961 | |
| 30 | 37 | Dale Jarrett | 44 | Toyota | 73 | 331 | $91,575 | |
| 31 | 38 | Ken Schrader | 21 | Ford | 70 | 331 | $112,364 | |
| 32 | 20 | Ryan Newman | 12 | Dodge | 67 | 330 | $122,625 | |
| 33 | 29 | Ricky Rudd | 88 | Ford | 64 | 321 | $118,933 | |
| 34 | 28 | Sterling Marlin | 14 | Chevrolet | 61 | 304 | $97,508 | |
| 35 | 32 | Kyle Petty | 45 | Dodge | 58 | 291 | $94,272 | |
| 36 | 12 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 8 | Chevrolet | 60 | 5 | 288 | $128,983 |
| 37 | 5 | Kyle Busch | 5 | Chevrolet | 52 | 262 | $100,475 | |
| 38 | 3 | Jimmie Johnson | 48 | Chevrolet | 49 | 260 | $135,261 | |
| 39 | 19 | David Ragan * | 6 | Ford | 46 | 239 | $117,025 | |
| 40 | 26 | Reed Sorenson | 41 | Dodge | 48 | 5 | 197 | $89,075 |
| 41 | 41 | Mike Bliss | 49 | Dodge | 40 | 42 | $80,960 | |
| 42 | 43 | Kenny Wallace | 78 | Chevrolet | 37 | 38 | $80,865 | |
| 43 | 18 | J. J. Yeley | 18 | Chevrolet | 34 | 1 | $108,898 |
Failed to Qualify-#00-David Reutimann, #36-Jeremy Mayfield, #37-John Andretti, #84-A. J. Allmendinger, #55-Michael Waltrip, #4-Ward Burton, #33-Scott Wimmer, #34-Kevin Lepage
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