FORT WORTH, Texas -- Kurt Busch will have a new crew chief next season and some have questioned why not make the change with his title hopes over, but Pat Tryson's pit call helped Busch win Sunday's Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Busch, who had one of the strongest cars all race, helped save a lap's worth of fuel in the 64 circuits after his final pit stop.

"[Kyle Busch] was going to win it, but they didn't get as good mileage as us,'' said Tryson, who will move to Michael Waltrip Racing after this season. "We worked pretty hard in practice and Kurt saved a bunch there at the end.''

Said Kurt: "For us it wasn't necessarily as big a risk as you might think. We could play it out the way we wanted to. We stayed out a little extra on the first run. That enabled us to stay out on the second run. I knew that's what Pat's direction was going to be.''

Kurt took the lead for good when younger brother Kyle ran out of gas with three laps to go. Kyle finished 11th. Kurt earned his second victory of the season and 20th of his career.

Rally time

Mark Martin's fourth-place finish cut his deficit to points leader Jimmie Johnson to 73 points with two races left.

The finish, though, didn't seem possible to Martin earlier this weekend.

"We were junk [Saturday], we were not very good in the first half of the race and they hit on something,'' Martin said. "I was like maybe we shouldn't change anything now. We were very competitive, solid top-five car then.''

Martin said he didn't change his approach knowing Johnson was in the garage after crashing on lap 3.

"I've got a hard race on my hands with Jeff Gordon and Juan Pablo [Montoya] and Tony Stewart,'' Martin said of some of the drivers behind him in the standings. "I've got my hands full.''

Tough day

Jeff Gordon overcame an ill-handling car, falling a lap behind and a spin to finish 13th. He remains third in the season standings but moved to within 112 points of Johnson. That wasn't enough for Gordon, though.

"I am just really disappointed in this day,'' he said. "A total missed opportunity that completely got away from us. We just didn't have it today. We had more of our typical Texas race where we needed our spectacular Texas race like we had [in the spring in winning].''

Number crunching

Richard Childress Racing placed three cars in the top 10 with Kevin Harvick fifth, Clint Bowyer seventh and Jeff Burton ninth. ... Dale Earnhardt Jr. appeared headed for a top-10 finish before he pitted at the end. He left his pit stall and then his car died. He struggled to restart it and lost three laps to finish 25th. ... AJ Allmendinger finished 10th in his first race in a Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports. ... Brad Keselowski finished 35th in his first race for Penske Racing.

Pit stops

The Charlotte Observer, citing unidentified sources, reports that Jamie McMurray will drive the No. 1 car at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing next season. ... Foxsports.com, citing unidentified sources, reports that Earnhardt Ganassi Racing will remain with Chevrolet. ... Donny Schatz, who drives for Tony Stewart Racing, won his fourth consecutive World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series championship on Saturday night.