Shortly after, NASCAR was forced to call the race and declared then leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. the victor.
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Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, and Jimmie Johnson rounded out the top five.
The inclement weather every team had been anticipating finally intervened with little more than a 100 laps remaining in Sunday’s race at Phoenix worldwide Raceway, the penultimate event of the season leading to next week’s championship finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Should he make the final four, Joe Gibbs Racing will likely fail to advance Carl Edwards.
The lead for Harvick was up to 2.6 seconds by lap 82; Kurt Busch was looking for 13th from Brad Keselowski, Johnson was up to 16th. Harvick has won four consecutive races at Phoenix and five of the last six. And right now I encourage everyone to go on to Twitter, my Facebook, my Instagram and follow it and we’re all going to have a survey… “You said I was happy”.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the race when NASCAR officials pulled the plug after a frustrating day of trying to get a pivotal Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship elimination round completed. We gained spots, so that was really cool and real fun, but we just needed a lot more speed to run with the 54.
That would start with Edwards, who was credited with a 12th-place finish Sunday, leaving him five points in the standings behind Truex, who finished 14th in the rain-shortened race.
“I think the reason why we won this race is because of the way we qualified to give ourselves a position to be up front all night”.
While Earnhardt celebrated his 28th career victory, the real winners were the three drivers who joined Gordon to enter Homestead at 5,000 points with the title going to the best finisher among those four at Homestead.
An unusual, dramatic 2015 Chase for the Sprint Cup featured another quirky, unpredictable day Sunday at Phoenix global Raceway. Harvick was shooting for his fifth straight Phoenix win and was very strong all night long.
Busch easily held off fellow Sprint Cup driver Brad Keselowski for his sixth series victory of the season and record-extending 76th overall. In last year’s finale at Homestead, Harvick was clutch in holding off Jeff Gordon and fellow Chase contender Ryan Newman to win.
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Gordon – In 16 career races at Homestead, Gordon has only finished worse than 11th three times. Kurt Busch had to win the race to advance, and he might have had a shot had it gone to completion. His fourth-place finish on Sunday secured his spot in the Championship Round. In a Chase where drivers have been scrutinized over potentially – and unethically – manipulating the outcome, this race was manipulated by Mother Nature, somewhat forcing NASCAR’s hand.
