NASCAR standings 2014: Matt Kenseth finishes 3rd, grabs points lead

He didn’t leave Dover International Speedway with his first victory of the year, but Matt Kenseth did capture the Sprint Cup points lead after a third-place finish Sunday. The result, accompanied with Jeff Gordon’s 12th-place effort, jumped Kenseth ahead of Gordon by two points at the halfway point of the regular season.

For the majority of the afternoon Kenseth enjoyed a fairly uneventful day, running consistently in the top 10.

His day, though, took a turn when late contact with Clint Bowyer caused Kenseth to hit the wall resulting in what he thought was significant damage. The incident occurred on a restart with four laps remaining with Kenseth lined up fourth and Bowyer sixth, and began when Kenseth spun his tires.

“I did an awful job on that last restart,” Kenseth said. “Just got spinning the tires too much.

Bowyer explained he had a run and was trying to help Kenseth get going when he tapped him from behind. The two talked on pit road after the race and neither side showed any hard feelings.

That wasn’t Bowyer’s first encounter with a Joe Gibbs Racing on Sunday. Earlier he played a prominent role in a wreck that knocked out Kyle Busch, as the two made contact off Turn 4. Bowyer continued with repairable damage, while Busch, who led the first 81 laps, finished 42nd.

Bowyer accepted blame for his role, as did his spotter, Brett Griffin, who cleared Bowyer before he had in fact cleared Busch.