“We will take this win”.
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“It’s definitely been a Chase that was a little up and down for us, but the guys have battled through and we’ve survived a lot of situations to be in contention for next week”.
Thanks to quick pit work, Earnhardt narrowly edged in front of Harvick off pit road just as a crash involving Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Joey Gase occurred. He came to Phoenix hoping to win for a fifth consecutive time at the 1-mile track in the desert and led for 143 of the rain-shorted race’s 219 laps. The final downpour ended the race 93 laps short of the 312 scheduled.
Although Harvick dominated the event, leading a total of 152 laps on the night, Earnhardt remained in hot pursuit. Johnson was the first driver off pit road during the caution.
“You like to win them at the chequered flag”, Earnhardt told NBC Sports.
Earnhardt’s crew chief, Greg Ives, an engineer by trade, had a very pragmatic take on the two races.
“They gave us a good enough auto to come here and qualify well (third)”, he added. “When something this quirky happens, we were able to capitalize”. A competition caution was called at Lap 40.
Race leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a different opinion about the weather.
“Today, we were on the wrong side of it, but in the big picture, we’re racing for a championship next week, so I’m just really proud of everybody on our team”. As Harvick pulled away when the race returned to green, Earnhardt and Logano traded the second position back and forth. Due to the delayed start, race coverage moved to NBCSN. Busch was given a pass-through penalty and finished seventh. But he was black flagged when NASCAR ruled he beat pole sitter Johnson to the line on the race’s initial start and was penalized.
Starting 18th on Sunday, he lingered around the top 10 most of the night and was ninth when the race was called.
They got it together when it counted and now here’s Martin, who has never finished higher than 11th in the points in his entire career, with a chance to win it all.
Earlier Sunday, rain began falling around 1:25 p.m. ET and a fleet of NASCAR Air Titan track dryers began circulating the 1-mile track approximately 20 minutes later as precipitation began to taper off. He’s quietly contended his way to Homestead, much like Ryan Newman did in the inaugural year of this championship format, and now he has the one-in-four chance at a championship he would have only dreamed of in last year’s disastrous debut season at Richard Childress Racing affiliate Furniture Row Racing in which he finished 24th. Other notable drivers who were expected to reach the finale but failed are Kurt Busch, Brad Keselowski, and Joey Logano. “As a team and as a driver and as a competitor within it, it’s all over the board and your emotions are all over the board”.
In the final race of the second round, at Talladega, the engine in Harvick’s No. 4 Chevy was failing, but he protected himself during a late restart by basically getting in the way of the cars behind him and causing an accident.
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NOTES: Kevin Harvick came into Sunday’s race as the victor of the four most recent races at Phoenix global Raceway…. So, it would be another Cinderella story for NASCAR if Kyle were to win his first-ever NASCAR Sprint Cup championship. Busch proved he could continue to advance by showing patience discovered during his 11-race layoff for injuries and by not over-driving his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to finish fourth.
