Posted on by Staff Report

MORE: Buy tickets for Homestead-Miami Championship Weekend


With drivers Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson and Joey Logano all set to compete for the 2016 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship Sunday at Miami (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio), NASCAR.com brings you up close with them, their crew chiefs and Miss Sprint Cup this week.

WEDNESDAY

Meet the Championship 4 crew chiefs in a live stream from 11 a.m. to noon ET on NASCAR.com. Dave Rogers, who sits atop the No. 19 pit box guiding Edwards’ team starts things off first at 11 a.m., followed by Todd Gordon (Logano, No. 22 team) at 11:15 a.m.; Chad Knaus (Johnson, No. 48 team) at 11:30 a.m. and Adam Stevens (Busch, No. 18 team) at 11:45 a.m. Go to www.nascar.com/champ4.

THURSDAY

Continue the live inside access with Media Day with the Championship 4 drivers at 3:05 p.m. ET, also streaming here on NASCAR.com. Then wrap up the day as the Championship 4 drivers chat with Miss Sprint Cup Julianna White from 4:15-4:50 p.m. ET streaming here.

 

Keep up with all the Chase finale action from Miami on NASCAR.com and the NASCAR Mobile App.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Honoring ‘Smoke’ through video

MORE: Buy tickets for Homestead-Miami Championship Weekend

Tony Stewart is accustomed to holding court in the media center or from pit road during a TV interview. Days before perhaps his final NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, he again was in command, but in a most unfamiliar territory — on social media.


Stewart, who joined Twitter in April 2009, has approximately 575 tweets from his @TonyStewart handle. That’s an average of about six tweets per month over the entirety of his account.


Monday night, over the span of two hours, “Smoke” delighted his fan base and nearly 600,000 followers with a 31-tweet barrage that was full of typical Stewart things — humor and candid observations, mainly.


It all was in celebration of his 2011 championship five years ago. NBCSN aired that race over two hours, and Stewart tweeted his thoughts for an event that has become one of the most iconic races in NASCAR. Stewart won five times during the 2011 Chase, including the final race in Miami to win the title over Carl Edwards … on a tiebreaker.

From the pre-race chatter, to the points battle to the weather to critical calls on pit road, the 2011 race had it all.

NASCAR.com will take a deeper dive into the 2011 season finale on Wednesday. Until then, re-live the race below through the eyes of “Smoke.”

Posted on by Official NASCAR Release

MORE: Buy tickets for Homestead-Miami Championship Weekend


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A record-setting season on social media continues Nov. 20 when NASCAR celebrates the final race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup like never before on Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Millions of Snapchat users will receive a behind-the-scenes look at the Ford Ecoboost 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) from NASCAR fans sharing their race-day experiences from Homestead-Miami Speedway as part of a Snapchat Live Story.

During the race, NASCAR will stream the in-car camera from Tony Stewart‘s No. 14 Chevrolet on Facebook Live as the legendary driver wraps up his full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career.

“Nothing in sports beats attending a NASCAR race live, but wherever fans are on Sunday we’ll have unique Chase experiences available for them across multiple social platforms,” said NASCAR Managing Director, Social Media, Scott Warfield. “NASCAR is a vibrant, content-rich sport, and we’ve seen unprecedented social engagement this season by bringing that content straight to our fans.”

So far in 2016, NASCAR’s elevated focus on social media including new platform partnerships has resulted in 236 million engagements — an 89 percent increase year-over-year — and 3.8 billion impressions.

Social activation leading up to and during Ford Championship Weekend include the following:

·       Facebook: The live stream of Stewart’s in-car camera can be viewed on the NASCAR Facebook page and will feature a special message from the driver to fans. The Facebook Live activation is one of several tributes planned as part of 14 Days of Smoke, a celebration of Stewart’s 18-year NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career.

·       Snapchat: On Championship 4 race day, thousands of submitted Snaps from Homestead-Miami Speedway will be curated and packaged by Snapchat into a video stream, offering fans a look at the sport through the lens of fans and drivers. The Live Story will be available to view on Snapchat for 24 hours.

·       Twitter: To bring tweets to life throughout The Chase, Twitter and NASCAR created a special, Chase-specific Twitter emoji. Fans are encouraged to join the Chase conversation this weekend and connect with teams, drivers and fans by tweeting with, and searching for #TheChase.

·       Instagram: NASCAR commissioned illustrators to create custom Instagram images during The Chase. Fans will get a peek into the illustrators’ creative process through NASCAR’s Instagram Story.

The next installment of the Ready. Set. Chase digital film series, re-enacting the on-track storylines of the Round of 8, will debut on social media and NASCAR.com/TheChase during Ford Championship Weekend. A fifth and final film will recap the entire Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and be released next week.

NASCAR will crown its 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion at the Ford Ecoboost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the fourth and final round of The Chase on Nov. 20 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Tickets are available at NASCAR.com/tickets.

Posted on by Team Release

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Nov. 15, 2016) — JR Motorsports race operations manager Mike Bumgarner will serve as crew chief of the No. 1 OneMain Financial team this Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway as driver Elliott Sadler vies for the NASCAR XFINITY Series championship.


Bumgarner will fill the role normally occupied by Kevin Meendering. Meendering is serving a one-race suspension as it was determined last Saturday at Phoenix International Raceway that two lugnuts were not satisfactorily fastened to the No. 1 car at the end of the Ticket Galaxy 200. NASCAR announced the infraction and penalty following the event.


“We let Kevin ultimately make this decision because it’s his team,” said general manager Kelley Earnhardt Miller. “Kevin chose Mike to sit in the crew chief’s seat and for good reason — he is experienced atop the pit box and very dependable. We have a great deal of confidence in Mike to give Elliott his best opportunity to win on Saturday.”


As one of the drivers left standing in the XFINITY Series Championship 4, Sadler can win his first NASCAR title in Saturday’s season finale. The Emporia, Virginia, native enters the race with three wins in 2016, 13 top-fives and 28 top-10s in 32 starts. He will compete against JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier and Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez.


Bumgarner, a native of Huntersville, N.C., is a 22-year veteran in NASCAR. He spent 18 years at Hendrick Motorsports, where he worked on cars for Terry Labonte, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch. In 2007, he was crew chief on Busch’s No. 5 Chevrolet, which won four races and three pole awards. Bumgarner came to JRM in 2013 as crew chief for Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet in the No. 5 NXS entry. The following year he was promoted to oversee race operations for all JR Motorsports teams.

Posted on by Pat DeCola

Logano continues to be the best driver in this Chase format, and his clutch Phoenix win – after nearly having it all end on the first lap after contact with Kyle Larson – was about as impressive as they come.

 

MORE: Logano wins Phoenix, advances

 

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/kyle-busch/
KyleBusch
3
Joe Gibbs Racing

Busch advanced at the expense of his teammate Matt Kenseth, but once he gets over that awkwardness he’ll be happy to know he has a shot to become the first back-to-back or two-time winner in the current iteration of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

MORE: ‘I guess I wrecked a teammate’

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/jimmie-johnson/
JimmieJohnson
-2
Hendrick Motorsports

Johnson has a shot at NASCAR history in less than a week, with a 1-in-4 chance to become the sport’s third seven-time champion. He’s finished ninth in the past three Miami races, however, which likely won’t cut it.

MORE: Why ‘Six-Time’ will become ‘Seven-Time’

With his three other competitors riding a wave of momentum as the most recent winner, most recent champion, and most recent six-time title-winner, Edwards will likely be looked at as the Championship 4 underdog. He’ll let his Miami numbers (series-high 568 laps led to go with two wins) do the talking.

MORE: Meet the Championship 4

The law of averages finally caught up to Harvick at Phoenix, and his failure to win his sixth of eight races in the desert will prevent him from being the only driver to advance to the Championship 4 in every year since its 2014 inception.

MORE: ‘We just came up short this year’

Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin said they’d wreck a teammate to move on, and we now know which teammate: Kenseth, albeit unintentionally. The No. 20 car was poised to move on to Miami late at Phoenix before a chain reaction from contact between the Nos. 18 and 88 took him out of it.

MORE: Late spin eliminates Kenseth from Chase

Busch was another Stewart-Haas Racing driver who turned in a valiant performance that came up just short at Phoenix. Both he and Harvick basically needed a win to advance, and neither did.

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/denny-hamlin/
DennyHamlin
-1
Joe Gibbs Racing

A late strategy to stay out during a caution nearly worked for the No. 11 crew … until another caution followed quickly after. Hamlin was unable to move on, which is a shame for him because Homestead is among his best tracks.

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/brad-keselowski/
BradKeselowski
1
Team Penske

Keselowski will certainly do everything he can to ensure Team Penske cohort Joey Logano lands in Victory Lane at Homestead, but if there’s one driver out there who wouldn’t mind playing Chase spoiler, it’s him. A No. 2 win is a major possibility if it isn’t for the No. 22.

Truex had a rough weekend at Phoenix from the get-go, and things didn’t improve for him in the race. A costly penalty and ultimately a wreck ended his chances of playing Chase spoiler at Phoenix.

MORE: Truex penalty explained

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/chase-elliott/
ChaseElliott
0
Hendrick Motorsports

Elliott has one race left to avoid being winless in his rookie season. Even if he fails to land in Victory Lane on Sunday, the young driver still met or exceeded just about all expectations of him.

Larson spun on the very first lap at Phoenix, and later mixed it up a bit with Ryan Newman (again!). Check out where he finished, though: third. Kid’s got talent, but we already knew that.

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/austin-dillon/
AustinDillon
-1
Richard Childress Racing

While Dillon has recently found a knack to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, we saw major improvement from the No. 3 driver in 2016 and it’s not a stretch to think he could be battling for a title late in the Chase next season.

Unless things turn around at Miami, McMurray’s 14 laps led in 2016 will be the lowest of his career. He even led more (97) in just six starts in 2002.

Stewart appears to be doing all he can to quietly bow out of his final season with grace. That’s great and all, but that’s not the "Smoke" we know. Here’s hoping he shakes things up in Miami.

One more week and Buescher and Co. can look back on 2016 as a relative success and focus on next season. Until then, expect another finish in the high 20s/low 30s.

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Full race results from Phoenix

MORE: Buy tickets for Homestead-Miami Championship Weekend

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Before Friday, Alex Bowman had never won a pole in NASCAR’s premier series.

Before Sunday, he’d led only nine laps in 79 career starts.

Friday at Phoenix International Raceway, he won his first Sprint Cup pole; two days later, he nearly pulled off the biggest upset of the Chase in the Can-Am 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

But contact with Kyle Busch and then race leader Matt Kenseth on an overtime restart sent Kenseth’s Toyota up the track and into the wall. The skirmish cost Bowman three spots, and he lost another on the final, race-ending two-lap run.

“Our car didn’t really take off on restarts all day long very well,” Bowman said after his impressive sixth-place finish, a career best for the 23-year-old in Sprint Cup competition. “So we had to make our way back up through there … we got to second at the end and had that caution come out.”

The restart wasn’t “terrible,” he said, “and the 18 (of Busch) turned me sideways getting into the corner. … I don’t know … I almost feel like the 20 (of Kenseth) though he was clear. … I wasn’t at the best angle but I was also against the inside wall when we made contact.”

 

It wasn’t the impression Bowman had hoped to make after such an impressive afternoon. “I would have raced the hell out of him for the win, but definitely didn’t want to do that,” he said.

 

The incident took Kenseth and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team out of title contention.

RELATED: Late wreck eliminates Kenseth from Chase

 

Bowman, a native of Tucson, led 194 of the 324 laps. Making just his ninth start of the season in place of the injured Dale Earnhardt Jr., the personable part-time driver gave the field a full-time look at the backside of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

 

Chase drivers were vying for the final two spots in Sunday’s Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Bowman was vying for more seat time. Earnhardt Jr.’s expected return next season means Bowman likely resumes his work as simulator driver extraordinaire for HMS.

 

Bowman had led 101 consecutive laps, and 194 of the first 257, before he was finally shuffled off the top spot during a round of pit stops inside the final 50 laps.

 

It didn’t take him long to make his way back toward the front of the pack.

 

In two years, first with BK Racing and then Tommy Baldwin Racing, Bowman had mustered only two finishes better than 20th (both at restrictor-plate tracks). Sunday’s finish was his third top-10 in nine starts with Hendrick.

 

He learned, he said, “probably that the race car just makes a hell of a difference.”

 

“I think I’ve had four Cup races here, and I don’t even know if I’ve finished inside the top 30 in any of them, and then came here with Hendrick Motorsports and led almost 200 laps. There (are) a lot of guys in the garage that can get the job done and run up front, they just don’t get the opportunity to show it, and I’m just thankful that I was given the opportunity to show it today.”

 

Kenseth wasn’t placing blame afterward as he tried to come to grips with the elimination. Bowman, meanwhile, was trying to balance feeling good about his own performance with the late-race incident and its consequences.

 

“I don’t know Matt,” he said. “He’s probably really mad at me right now I’d imagine, but hopefully we can move past it and race clean at Homestead.”

 

Posted on by

RELATED: Full race results | Series standings | Chase Grid

 

Breaking down the full field for the Can-Am 500 at Phoenix International Raceway:

 

1. Joey Logano, No. 22 Ford, Team Penske. How’s this for irony? The guy who won the race — in overtime no less — almost didn’t make it past Lap 1. Grade: A+

 

2. Kyle Busch, No. 18 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Busch said it was an “ugly race for us” and “we ran pretty bad all day.” Perhaps. But he has a shot at the championship, and teammate Matt Kenseth, who had the exact opposite day of Busch, doesn’t. Unfortunate for Kenseth, but that’s racin’. Grade: A

 

3. Kyle Larson, No. 42 Chevrolet, Chip Ganassi Racing. It was Larson who almost took out Joey Logano — and himself — on the first lap when he got loose in Turn 3, drifted into Logano (causing a tire rub on the No. 22) and then went for a spin through traffic. But that wasn’t Larson’s only adventure. He was involved in the second caution when he got hit from behind by Ryan Newman as both were entering pit road. Quite a day. And quite a finish. Grade: A

 

4. Kevin Harvick, No. 4 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. Early problems with the car’s handling were too much to overcome, and for the first time since the current Chase format went into effect, Harvick will not be driving for a championship at Homestead. Grade: A-

 

5. Kurt Busch, No. 41 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. Busch caught some breaks and tied a career high with his 21st top 10 of the season, but only a win would have kept him alive in the Chase. Grade: A

 

6. Alex Bowman, No. 88 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. Bowman led a race-high 194 laps and was the car to beat all afternoon. He was strong enough to win or at least finish second. He looked so good behind the wheel, you would have thought Dale Earnhardt Jr. was inside the No. 88, not a guy without a ride for 2017. Grade: A++

 

7. Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Hamlin’s team rolled the dice when he didn’t pit after the sixth caution and restarted with the lead on Lap 262. The move didn’t work, but playing it safe likely wouldn’t have, either. Grade: A

 

8. Ryan Blaney, No. 21 Ford, Wood Brothers Racing. With all the focus on the Chase drivers and Alex Bowman, Blaney drove under the radar to his ninth top 10 of the season. The last time Wood Brothers Racing had nine top 10s in a season was 2005 with Ricky Rudd. Grade: A

 

9. Chase Elliott, No. 24 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. Elliott posts back-to-back top-10 finishes for the first time in more than two months. Grade: A

 

10. Paul Menard, No. 27 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing. Menard’s third top 10 of 2016 was RCR’s 26th of the season, one more than last season. Grade: A

 

11. Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Chevrolet, Chip Ganassi Racing. McMurray finished in the top 15 at Phoenix for the sixth consecutive race (11.3 average finish). Grade: B

 

12. Ryan Newman, No. 31 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing. For a guy who was instrumental in two cautions — running into Kyle Larson and later Martin Truex Jr. — Newman posted a dang good finish. Can’t say the same for Truex, though. Grade: C+

 

13. Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. The overtimes cost Kahne a top-10 finish. Grade: B

 

14. Brad Keselowski, No. 2 Ford, Team Penske. Keselowski’s 29th- and 14th-place finishes at Phoenix this year were his worst combined performance at the track since he finished 16th and 42nd in 2010, his first full season racing for Roger Penske. Grade: B

 

15. Tony Stewart, No. 14 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. Stewart is not making a lot of noise as he heads off into retirement. His finish Sunday was only his third-best in the past 13 races. Grade: B-

 

16. Greg Biffle, No. 16 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing. The driver of the No. 16 finished 16th in his 500th consecutive Sprint Cup start. Sweet. Grade: B-

 

17. AJ Allmendinger, No. 47 Chevrolet, JTG Daugherty Racing. Score one for consistency: Allmendinger finished 17th for the second straight race at Phoenix and for third time in his past four starts at the track. (And for good measure, AJ finished 17th last week, too.) Grade: B-

 

18. Casey Mears, No. 13 Chevrolet, Germain Racing. Mears posted his best finish since running 12th at Watkins Glen in August. Grade: B

 

19. Carl Edwards, No. 19 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Edwards qualified for a shot at the championship with his win last week at Texas and was not a factor Sunday. Grade: B-

 

20. Landon Cassill, No. 38 Ford, Front Row Motorsports. Cassill’s seventh top-20 finish in 2016 is equal to his top 20s in his previous three seasons combined. Grade: A

 

21. Matt Kenseth, No. 20 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Kenseth went from race leader to out of the Chase in a flash when he thought he was clear after the first overtime restart but wasn’t and went spinning after pinching down on Alex Bowman. The focus quickly went to Kenseth’s spotter, Chris Osborne, who later tweeted his apologies to all of Kenseth’s fans “for ending our Chase hopes,” adding “this one’s on me.” Maybe, maybe not. It’s not as if Osborne had all day to make the call. As Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast.” Grade: B

 

22. Aric Almirola, No. 43 Ford, Richard Petty Motorsports. Sunday’s finish ended Almirola’s run of nine consecutive top-20 finishes at Phoenix. Grade: C

 

23. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 17 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing. An untimely caution after a green-flag pit stop put Stenhouse in a hole he couldn’t climb out of. Grade: C

 

24. Clint Bowyer, No. 15 Chevrolet, HScott Motorsports. Bowyer’s 12th top-25 finish of the second half of the season equaled his number in the first 18 races of the season. Grade: C

 

25. Matt DiBenedetto, No. 83 Toyota, BK Racing. DiBenedetto finished in the top 25 for the sixth time this season, including for the third time in his past five starts. Grade: B

 

26. Michael Annett, No. 46 Chevrolet, HScott Motorsports. Annett equaled his third-best finish of the season (26th at Kentucky in July). Grade: B-

 

27. Regan Smith, No. 7 Chevrolet, Tommy Baldwin Racing. Looking for progress? Smith finished in the top 30 for the 12th time in the second half of the season Sunday, compared with eight top 30s in the first half. And he did it in three fewer starts. Grade: C

 

28. Trevor Bayne, No. 6 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing. Bayne went for a slide on the first lap when Kyle Larson spun out, and later was a victim of bad timing on a caution after he had pit under green. Grade: C-

 

29. Danica Patrick, No. 10 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. Patrick endured her fourth-worst finish of the season Sunday. She finished 19th at Phoenix in March. Grade: D

 

30. Brian Scott, No. 44 Ford, Richard Petty Motorsports. Three days after announcing he would retire after the season, Scott finished five laps off the pace Sunday. Grade: D

 

31. David Ragan, No. 23 Toyota, BK Racing. Ragan had his worst finish at Phoenix in three years. Grade: D

 

32. Chris Buescher, No. 34 Ford, Front Row Motorsports. The onetime Chaser posted his worst finish of the nine Chase races. Grade: D

 

33. Jeffrey Earnhardt, No. 32 Ford, GO FAS Racing. Earnhardt finished six laps back in his first Sprint Cup start at Phoenix. Grade: D

 

34. Michael McDowell, No. 95 Chevrolet, Circle Sport-Leavine Family. McDowell changed the course of the race — and the Chase — when he blew a tire with one lap left in regulation, hit the wall and brought out the eighth caution. Grade: D

 

35. D.J. Kennington, No. 55 Chevrolet, Premium Motorsports. Kennington made his first Cup start, and if he never starts another race, he’ll be guaranteed to be able to tell his grandchildren that for all of Jimmie Johnson’s accomplishments in NASCAR, Six-Time (or, perhaps, Seven-Time) never beat him on the track. Grade: D-

 

36. Reed Sorenson, No. 98 Chevrolet, Premium Motorsports. Sorenson finished nine laps back. Grade: F

 

37. Gray Gaulding, No. 30 Chevrolet, The Motorsports Group. A fuel pump problem spoiled Gaulding’s second Sprint Cup start. Grade: F

 

38. Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. Johnson went to pit road as the leader during the fourth caution, but he passed the pace car on pit road and was penalized and that led to the unraveling of his day. On the subsequent restart, he suffered heavy damage to the nose of his car when he ran into the back of Greg Biffle, who had checked up when Austin Dillon’s car lost power. Not the best way to go into Homestead racing for a championship, but if anything, absorbing that penalty Sunday pretty much guarantees if Johnson is in a similar situation next Sunday, he won’t make the same mistake. Better this week than next week. Grade: F

 

39. Austin Dillon, No. 3 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing. On a restart on Lap 218, a part failed and shut off Dillon’s engine. Dillon eventually returned to the track, but he left Phoenix with his worst finish of the season. Grade: F

 

40. Martin Truex Jr., No. 78 Toyota, Furniture Row Racing. If you Google “How do you finish last in a Sprint Cup race?” this might be one of the results: Roll off the starting grid 40th. Be on pit road under green when there’s a caution. Be penalized for passing the pace car on pit road. Race too close to Ryan Newman. Grade: F

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Full race results | Chase Grid
MORE: Buy tickets for Homestead-Miami Championship Weekend

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kevin Harvick, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver who has made a habit of bouncing back from adversity, couldn’t bounce back this time.


The Stewart-Haas Racing driver, faced with an esstentially must-win situation in Sunday’s Can-Am 500, finished fourth instead, and won’t be one of the four drivers competing for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship next weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway.


Not that Harvick and his team, led by crew chief Rodney Childers, didn’t nearly pull it off. After losing a lap during the first half of the race, the team battled back, continued to make changes to the No. 4 Chevrolet and when the race went into overtime following a caution, Harvick was inside the top five and hopeful.


There was a crack in the door after all, with only Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson between himself and the winner’s circle.


But Larson shot low on the final restart of the extended, 324-lap event at Phoenix International Raceway, slowing Harvick’s progress while allowing Logano, the eventual race winner, and Busch to drive away.


“That was the hard part,” said Harvick, who needed a victory to secure a spot in the championship round of the Chase. “The 42 (Larson) kind of dive-bombed everyone three-wide.”


After his fourth-place finish, Harvick made it a point to pay Larson a visit on pit road after the race.


“You have three guys racing for the championship there,” Harvick said. “I know he wants to win but all in all it didn’t really make a race out of it.”


Harvick’s record at the 1-mile track has been stout, with six victories in eight races before Sunday. He was easily the favorite coming into the event, but perhaps slightly less so after two days of practice.


There was no domination here Sunday, just a hard day’s work. To come as close as they did, he said, was a testament to the team.


“We just started way too far off on Friday,” he said. “We never got a handle on the race car. They made it a ton better in the race and we were in contention there at the end and just came up short. I’m just really proud of everybody for the effort that they put in.”


Harvick won the series title just two years ago, the first year of the elimination-style format. But the format wasn’t as kind this time around.


The final three-round segment saw him finish two laps down at Martinsville and while he finished sixth last week at Texas, he failed to make up any significant ground on those in front.


The fourth-place run at Phoenix was both too little and too late to be of any benefit.


“It was a very challenging Chase for us for all the mechanical failures and situations that we had going on,” he said. “We kept rebounding and winning races and today we were a lap down and came back to have a chance at the end. That says a lot about the character of our race team.


“We just came up short this year.”

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Race results | Chase Grid
MORE: Buy tickets for Homestead-Miami Championship Weekend


AVONDALE, Ariz. — Matt Kenseth wasn’t involved in the crash that forced Sunday’s Can-Am 500 into overtime.

Unfortunately for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, he was involved in the one that took place during the extended period.

From potential race winner and championship finalist to a 21st-place finish and no opportunity to win the big one for a second time in his career.

All within the span of a single restart.

One of six drivers vying for the remaining two positions in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ title-determining event next weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kenseth held the upper hand in the closing laps. He led the surprisingly quick Alex Bowman with less than two laps remaining when Michael McDowell crashed in Turn 3 to bring out the caution flag.


MORE: Bowman talks overtime finish


On the ensuing overtime restart, JGR teammate Kyle Busch, running third, tried to shoot inside Bowman, who dropped low to block; Bowman wiggled but corrected and tucked low going into Turn 1 to get beneath Kenseth. Kenseth wasn’t aware of Bowman’s position, and the No. 20 Toyota slid up the track and backed into the outside wall.

RELATED: Busch: ‘I guess I wrecked a teammate’

Kenseth said he didn’t know what happened to cause the accident. His spotter Chris Osborne “said I was clear,” he said, “and I came to the bottom in Turn 1 because I certainly wanted to be at the bottom and be in front of (Bowman) going into Turn 2 and then I was in the wall.


“Obviously it’s more than disappointing; we still had the race in control even on that last restart and I ended up giving it away.”

The incident allowed Joey Logano to streak past for the lead, and the Team Penske driver held on for the win on the ensuing restart. Busch finished second to secure the final Championship berth.


RELATED: Logano, Busch join Edwards, Johnson in Championship 4 battle

There’s no way to digest what happened, Jason Ratcliff, Kenseth’s crew chief, said afterward.

“You don’t,” he said. “You’re half a lap away from getting the white flag and I don’t know what happened to the 95 (of McDowell) but … really?

“It’s disappointing. I thought we did everything we needed to do execution-wise It’s a shame to come up short like that.”

Besides Kenseth, who led 55 laps, teammate Denny Hamlin and both Stewart-Haas Racing drivers Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch, failed to advance.

Harvick had won six of the last eight races at the 1-mile track located 30 minutes outside of Phoenix.

Noted for his and his team’s ability to score the win when most needed, the magic wasn’t there this time.


WATCH: Harvick talks about team’s three tough races


Harvick, who finished fourth, said the team never “got a handle” on the No. 4 Chevrolet in Phoenix, although adjustments during the race enabled him to race his way into contention in the latter stages of the event.

Kurt Busch finished fifth while Hamlin was seventh.

A decision to not pit for tires under caution with a little more than 50 laps remaining gave Hamlin the lead, but it was short-lived as Kenseth moved back in front following the restart with fresh tires. 

“I knew we had an uphill climb,” Hamlin said, “And I still thought we were OK.”

But a subsequent caution put him on the inside for the restart “and I just got shuffled from there,” he said. “We performed well this round, but not great and you need to be great to advance.”