The race was stopped when heavy rain arrived again on Lap 219 of a scheduled 312 laps. Defending champion Kevin Harvick, underdog Martin Truex Jr. He drove through the pits on lap 8, handing the lead to Johnson.
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The race was scheduled for early Sunday afternoon, but a rain shower before the start spoiled the day.
The first caution, a NASCAR mandated one, came out on lap 41.
He was eliminated from the Chase after the second round when a caution prevented him from racing Logano to the checkered flag at Talladega.
Joey Logano, who swept all three races in the Contender round of the Chase, had a disappointing Eliminator round in his attempt to make it into the final four for the second straight year. But Kurt Busch is seventh in points and probably needs to beat Harvick to make the finale. Busch led the field to the green flag and quickly pulled out a two second lead over the field before the next interruption which came on lap 60 for Dylan Kwasniewski (Obaika Racing) spinning into the wall on the backstretch.
But on the initial start of the race Busch got to the start/finish line before pole-sitter Johnson and subsequently earned a pass-through penalty down pit road.
Kurt Busch, who won the first Chase title in 2004, is 34 back – almost a full race’s worth – and would need a quirky set of circumstances to move on unless he wins. By the halfway point of the race, though, both Johnson and Kurt Busch were inside the top 10 of the running order. “Even though there’s very little that we learn here this weekend – the tires are completely different, the track is completely different, the surface is completely different – it’s still an important race”. When it finally stopped raining, the race began 6 hours, 42 minutes later.
Busch easily held off fellow Sprint Cup driver Brad Keselowski for his sixth series victory of the season and record-extending 76th overall.
The group with the most momentum is Hendrick Motorsports, which has won three consecutive races with three drivers – Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Earnhardt. Gordon clinched his advancement to the final round of the Chase with a win at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on November 1.
A win by one of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship drivers on Sunday at Phoenix earns an automatic berth into the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Erik Jones substituted for the suspended Matt Kenseth in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota for the second week, and he came in 19th. Kenseth will return next week….
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When rain cut short Sunday’s rain-delayed NASCAR race, Dale Earnhardt Jr. capitalized to claim the victory.
