Jimmie Johnson uses many factors to ride away with the win in Texas

Wow, wasn't that a great race we had Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway? That was a tough 500-mile race, which those drivers ran in three and a half hours. That's averaging around 140 miles per hour, so they sure were getting the job done, especially when you factor in the caution flags they had.

Kurt Busch and his teammate Kevin Harvick started on the front row. For a while there it looked like it was going to be a Stewart-Haas Racing night with Kurt leading 45 laps and Kevin led the second most of any driver with 98. Those two dominated the early stages of the race.

One thing I always loved about a 500-mile race and one on a Saturday night is there is always an incredible amount of strategy that comes into play. The driver and crew chief who can anticipate and keep up with the track changes over the course of the race are the ones who normally come out on top.

When you start a race in the evening before the sun sets and the race ends later that night, you are going to see changes in how your car drives as the track surface changes. Teams try a lot of different things in practice to help them make decisions on how to set their race car up in anticipation of those changing track conditions.

When the temperatures drop, you'll see grip on the track increase. So all these drivers and crew chiefs are trying to anticipate what the pace of the race will be so they can set their car up accordingly. These crew chiefs have all kinds of data at their fingertips to help them make their best estimate.

Each track has its own set of trends. These teams have a pretty good feel of when a track will be loose or tight. These trends also give them a pretty good feel of when cautions will happen. So the crew chiefs use that as a tool as they set their strategy throughout the evening. As the racing action ebbs and flows, good crew chiefs are able to make the right adjustments to get their car as close to perfect as they can for the run at the end of the race.

That's what I saw Saturday with the No. 48 car. Jimmie Johnson qualified fifth and I saw them run a very similar race Saturday night as they had done at Atlanta earlier this year. The tracks are similar, so they can take a lot of the same information they have from Atlanta and apply it to Texas Motor Speedway. If you go back and look, Jimmie didn't really come to the front taking the lead both at Atlanta and Texas until close to the halfway point of both races. That's where the setup and strategy I was talking about earlier comes into play.

So guys were good early, like Kurt Busch, but it seemed like they simply weren't able to keep up with the track changes as well as the No. 48. The car that was the most consistent, but didn't win the race was the No. 4 car. Kevin and that team are just consistently fast every week. In the last nine races, they have had Top-2 finishes in eight of them. Martinsville was the track where Kevin finished eighth.

I brag on that car because it's the car you have to beat each and every week. Kevin's our defending series champion. Kevin's leading the points, he already has two wins, seven top-10 and six top-five finishes in seven races this season. No matter where we race, no matter what the track configuration is, they are the car everyone else is chasing. They have set the benchmark of excellence that all these other teams are trying to match.

I don't think Jimmie had a better car than Kevin Saturday night but it just seemed like Jimmie was able to cut through traffic better. When Kevin got penned in racing with Jamie McMurray with 14 laps to go, Jimmie was able to get the lead but Kevin never was able to catch him back.

So there at the end it seemed to be the battle of the titans. It was the No. 48 versus the no. 4. You had Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 coming on strong with the two Team Penske Fords of Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano lurking back there to see what was going to play out between the three Chevrolets ahead of them.

You couldn't have asked for more action at the end of that race Saturday night than what we got. Jimmie got the lead but Kevin did everything humanly possible to try and get back around Jimmie. Kevin even put the car in the wall and all but drug the right side off his No 4.

Dale Jr. got around him for second which had us thinking it was going to be a 1-2 Hendrick Motorsports finish. The problem was no one told Kevin that. On the last lap they went into Turn 3 and Kevin put the ol' crossover move on Dale Jr. and beat him back to the line for second.

Jimmie was able to come out on top for his fifth win at Texas plus it was his first race he's won there in the spring. So once again, when you start talking about racing at Texas then the top car you automatically will keep an eye on is that No. 48. Jimmie cowboys up when we go there and gets the job done.

Saturday night also showed us drivers who had problems early but were able to catch the cautions right to come out with still a great finish. Both Brad and Dale Jr. had vibrations. Dale Jr. ended up third while Brad posted a fifth-place finish. I felt bad for Paul Menard. He was running a great race until mechanical issues took him out of the picture. Jeff Gordon struggled all night but a gutsy two-tire call got Jeff the track position he needed and he finished seventh. Jamie McMurray used the same two-tire strategy and came up sixth.

Obviously Hendrick Motorsports had an incredible evening at Texas. Jimmie wins but in addition to that all four of their cars finished in the top 10. How about Martin Truex Jr. and crew chief Cole Pearn posting their seventh consecutive top-10 finish?  He, Kevin and Joey Logano kept the streak alive of being the only three drivers in 2015 to have seven top-10 finishes in seven races.

The Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas had a decent night at Texas. Carl Edwards was the top finishing Toyota with his 10th-place run. That was his first top 10 of the season. Teammate Denny Hamlin finished 11th and David Ragan who continues to replace the injured Kyle Busch finished 13th. Unfortunately their fourth teammate, Matt Kenseth, didn't have a very good race and finished a disappointing 23rd.

JGR also had a very good night on Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. Young Erik Jones continues to turn heads with his first XFINITY win in only nine starts. He held off a handful of NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brad Keselowski for the win. This young man is only 18 years old and it's ironic because Chase Elliott was only 18 years old last year when he also got his first win at Texas Motor Speedway.

While Ragan has done an amazing job subbing for the injured Kyle Busch, I still wouldn't be surprised to see Joe Gibbs Racing put young Mr. Jones behind the wheel of that No. 18 car before too long. This Erik Jones is a special talent. It sort of reminded me of watching Jordan Speith who is all of 21 years old win a record-tying Masters Sunday at Augusta. Both seemingly have a very bright future ahead of them.

So we've left the Lone Star State and are headed to the Last Great Coliseum -- Bristol Motor Speedway. We'll be heading down into those concrete canyons of Thunder Valley on Sunday and trust me, the thunder will roll. 

VIDEO: Jimmie Johnson talks on FOX Sports' Victory Lane about the big win at Texas