Jimmie Johnson continued his successful history with the Texas Motor Speedway, winning the Duck Commander 500 on Saturday.

Entering April, six-time NASCAR champion Johnson had four wins at Texas Motor Speedway, but had never claimed a victory during the American spring.

Racing under lights for the first time this season, Johnson led for 128 laps to greet the chequered flag in the 334-lap affair.

After a lap 297 pit stop, Kevin Harvick jumped out to over a one-second lead on Joey Logano and Johnson but a Cole Whitt wreck brought out the caution flag with 24 laps to go. The caution was at a good time for Harvick, who had debris on the grill causing water temperatures to rise. 

Jamie McMurray, Jeff Gordon, and Martin Truex Jr decided to take two tyres, leaving Harvick and Johnson with work to do with 21 laps to go. 

Johnson took the lead from McMurray with 12 laps to go and did not look back, capturing a track-record fifth win at Texas.

Harvick, who saw his streak of eight consecutive top-two finishes end at Martinsville two weeks ago, led a Texas career-high 96 laps on his return to the top two. He has scored finishes of second or better in eight of his past 14 starts.

Fan favourite Dale Earnhardt Jr drove into the top 10 early in the race after qualifying in 25th, but had to re-pit to tighten lug nuts on lap 35 and re-started in 30th. He raced back to the top-three by lap 176, but finished third behind Harvick by just .038 seconds.

Defending champion Logano finished fourth, while Brad Keselowski rounded out the top five.

Keselowski was hit with a commitment cone violation on lap 267 and was forced to restart in 23rd place. The rarely enforced penalty states that all four tyres must be below the orange commitment cone at the beginning of pit road. Keselowski worked his way back through the pack to record his sixth top-10 finish in his last seven Texas races.

Truex Jr finished ninth to secure his seventh consecutive top-10 finish this season, while pole-winner Kurt Busch led for 46 laps, but finished in 14th.

Ryan Newman, whose crew chief was suspended six races, and fined $125,000 for tyre tampering, had to start at the rear of the field after the team changed the engine earlier in the day. Newman worked his way up to the top 10 but settled for a 12th-place finish.

NASCAR Sprint Cup action returns on April 19 from Bristol, Tennessee for the Food City 500 in Support of Steve Byrnes and Stand Up to Cancer.