RELATED: Race results | See who advanced, who was eliminated post-Phoenix
AVONDALE, Ariz. — For Kurt Busch, the high hopes for a second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title were dented almost before they started Sunday, the result of a first-lap penalty for jumping the initial drop of the green flag at Phoenix International Raceway.
For the 2004 champ and three other drivers on an odd, rainy Sunday, there would be no sun in the Arizona desert and no safe passage to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship Round next Sunday. Rain brought an early halt to a NASCAR premier-series event for only the second time in 39 races at the 1-mile track, leaving 93 laps on the board and four drivers wondering what could have been over the final stretch.
Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski both entered the Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 in essentially must-win situations to clinch a berth in the season finale next Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway; Logano wound up two positions short and Keselowski missed it by eight. Edwards just needed a better points day than the three drivers ahead of him; he fell short by five points, telling his crew “they can’t let it end like this” as the curtain-closing showers intensified.
The sour taste was perhaps most pungent for Busch, who started in second place but was just inches ahead of pole-sitter Jimmie Johnson once the race started — nearly seven hours late and with Busch ruled just a split second too soon.
“That wasn’t a penalty,” said Busch, who wound up seventh of the eight title hopefuls after the Eliminator Round cutoff. “That’s a reason to start a survey and right now, I encourage everybody to go onto Twitter, my Facebook, my Instagram and follow it, and we’re all going to have a survey.”
Restarts — an increasingly intriguing topic in the second half of the season — were again on the front burner in the pre-race drivers’ meeting, with four-time champion Jeff Gordon asking if the second-place car could beat the leading “control” car to the start-finish line. The social media jury may still be out, but a NASCAR spokesperson said the ruling was a procedural penalty that race officials stand behind.
“Who knows, man?” said Tony Gibson, crew chief of Busch’s Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 Chevy. “We’ve seen guys all year long do that, so it’s … I don’t know. It’s the most inconsistent thing I’ve ever seen, so it is what it is. We’ll just deal with it and go on.
“We definitely had a car to win. Just didn’t happen. We’ll be all right.”
Busch protested over the radio once the penalty was announced after a brief review, and he eventually served his penalty on Lap 8, stripped of leading the opening laps and left to rally from last place to an eventual seventh-place result. Despite his dismay, Busch was able to find positives in the way his scrappy team responded to its tumultuous season.
“I had a great season. We won two races, sat on three poles,” Busch said. “We did everything possible to put polish on a season like this and get out there with elbow grease and work hard at it. There’s some tarnish that’s sitting there. Polish and polish and polish — that’s all I kept doing this whole year.”
The others dealt with a mixed bag of misfortune, either coming out on the wrong end of a final caution flag that interrupted a green-flag cycle of pit stops and ultimately propelled Dale Earnhardt Jr. to victory, or failing to make up ground on runner-up Kevin Harvick, whose dominance during a four-race Phoenix win streak ended despite leading 143 of the 219 laps.
Logano spent the majority of his day among the top five, but couldn’t escape the deficit caused by Matt Kenseth‘s intentional crash at Martinsville in the round opener. He left Phoenix last among the final eight, but still able to savor a six-win season.
“I’m proud of what this team’s done,” Logano said moments before the race was abbreviated. “We’ve had amazing runs throughout the year, we’ve been consistently fast. We showed it again tonight that we’ve got really good speed in our cars. Our team doesn’t make mistakes and it’s something I’m very proud of. Today is obviously a high-pressure situation for everyone, and everyone’s just been loose and acting like it was a normal day. Couldn’t be more proud of this team either way, no matter what happens. I really wanted to get another shot, so we can wait and see.”
Keselowski, also caught up in one of the Martinsville run-ins, was sixth among the final eight — a distant 13 points behind final championship qualifier Martin Truex Jr.
“I don’t think it matters what’s fair,” Keselowski said when asked about the early end to the next-to-last race of the season. “What matters is what entertains the fans, and if the fans are happy, that’s what it’s all about.”
Edwards was vocal on his team radio in his desire to restart the race, potentially waiting out another delay under the lights. The ending left him 12th in the race and fifth in the Eliminator Round standings, five points behind Truex.
“How hard they’ve worked all year to come down to something as simple as a rainout,” said Grubb, in his fourth year with Joe Gibbs Racing. “We feel like we could have raced our way back in there and had a shot at it. We were still five points out, just like we were five points coming in. We knew that was going to be a tough situation, but it ended up that it bit us and I just hate it for these guys. I’m very proud to have had a championship in the past and I wanted to help bring one to these guys who have worked so hard for it.”