Recapping the day at Homestead for the three odd drivers out

MORE: Full race results | Final season standings | Harvick wins championship

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — With 20 laps left in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup finale, all four title contenders were occupying the top four positions on the track. Some of the hardest racing of the season had gotten them there, but only one could hoist the championship trophy after the nerve-shaking finish.

Kevin Harvick survived everything the remaining three could throw at him, claiming his first title in NASCAR’s premier series Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano came up short in the Ford EcoBoost 400, but the varying paths prompted varying reactions with equal parts resignation, acceptance and heartache.


How the three odd men out of the Championship 4 fared Sunday:

Ryan Newman, Richard Childress Racing No. 31 Chevrolet

Sunday’s finish: 2nd.

Final standings: 2nd (previous career-best: 6th in 2002, 2003 and 2005)

How it played out: The lone winless driver eligible for the crown started the farthest back on the grid, in 21st place, but steadily worked his way up the leaderboard to crack the top five by Lap 72. Newman benefited from crew chief Luke Lambert’s call for two tires during the team’s final pit stop, then inherited second place when Jeff Gordon pitted under caution with 11 laps remaining. From there, Newman fought hard but gave way to Harvick’s charge to the front on the next-to-last restart, taking the checkered flag exactly half a second behind the 2014 champion in the team’s best finish of the season.

What they said: "I was happy the situation I was in. I mean, our sport would have been better if the four of us were on the front two rows, absolutely, but in the end I was one of the guys that had a shot at it, and I was happy to be in that position. But man, you live for the moment and you drive as hard as you can. We didn’t have quite enough. That’s disappointing, but like I said, it was an awesome team effort, and I think, again, this is a great race track to have a race like this, and I thought there was some amazing passing, and we don’t get that at every race track. It was fun from my standpoint to come from where we came from this year. We started the season in Daytona getting spun out in the last five laps to being the runner‑up for the championship. It was a good rebound for us."

Support system: Team owner Richard Childress has won championships before, securing six as a team owner with NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt. But a win Sunday would have given the 69-year-old former driver his first title in 20 years. "It hurts. Now I know talking to Ned Yost last week how he feels, coming up short," Childress said, comparing his situation to the World Series loss for the Kansas City Royals manager, a close personal friend.

Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota

Sunday’s finish: 7th

Final standings: 3rd (career-best: 2nd, 2010)

How it played out: Hamlin started eighth and wound up being the only driver among the ousted three to lead laps in the season finale. His race turned, however, when crew chief Darian Grubb elected to keep his driver on the track during the 11th of 13 yellow flags. The move gave Hamlin the lead in the 253rd of 267 laps, but the driver said over his team radio that he wasn’t sure about the strategy: "I don’t know. I thought we could have beat them on pit road." On older tires and with two restarts still to come, Hamlin held the top spot for as long as he could until Harvick stormed to the front with eight laps left. His car continued to fade, a top-five slipping away in the final few circuits.

What they said: "You know, for me there’s not one thing I would have done different. I mean, we brought a car that was capable of winning. I just don’t know how to express it enough. Sometimes breaks go your way, sometimes they don’t. They just didn’t go our way. There’s not much else we could have done with the strategy that we played with the cautions that came out. I wouldn’t do a thing different. I think we overachieved greatly by being here, and we haven’t had the speed to compete for race wins all year, and we did today, on the race that really mattered. Just came up short. You know, this is the third time around that I’ve had an opportunity to win a championship, but each one has been different, and this has by far been our best effort as far as going out there and trying to get it done."

Support system: Hamlin had NBA legend and personal friend Michael Jordan behind his pit stall as part of a star-studded cheering section. But he also had Grubb thinking outside the box in an effort to gain track position.

The crew chief led a team huddle at the back of the hauler, offering words of encouragement. Though he said he’d have loved a do-over, he wasn’t completely faulting the decision. "Hindsight is 20-20. It’s the wrong call. But, at the time it was the perfect call," Grubb said. "We were able to get out there and get the lead. We had, I think, 17 laps to go. We were walking away from them and the next closest guy with tires was in seventh, I believe. So, we had it wrapped up there and then two quick cautions are what killed us."

Joey Logano, Team Penske No. 22 Ford

Sunday’s finish: 16th

Final standings: 4th (previous career-best: 8th, 2013)

How it played out: Logano started his day in ninth place and soon became a fixture among the top five. Though he found plenty of speed in his No. 22 entry, pivotal miscues on his final pit stops were his undoing. Logano lost some momentum after scraping the wall near the Lap 180 mark, but the bigger pitfalls came during the team’s final stops. In the race’s seventh caution, Logano lost six spots in a 14.6-second stop when a dropped lug nut caused a delay. Two stops later, disaster struck when the car slipped off the jack right after the crew had removed the left-side tires. The Penske crew fixed the issue but only after the No. 22 had spent an agonizing 49.3 seconds in the pit box. Logano rejoined the race in 29th place, slamming his fist on the steering wheel as his hopes for a first Sprint Cup title evaporated.

What they said: "Unfortunately, a great season like that makes this overall finish fourth because of one mistake, but that’s what the rules are. We understand that. This team did a great job of consistently being fast. In the previous years that would have been perfect. But coming into this race and the way the points go, it doesn’t pay any more obviously. Just didn’t execute perfectly tonight, and for that reason we’ll finish fourth. But we still feel like we did a lot better than fourth this season."

Support system: Crew chief Todd Gordon said he suspected Sunday’s pit-road gaffe was the first time all season that the car had slipped off the jack. The level of dejection was evident on his driver’s face afterward, but Gordon said that once time passes after Sunday’s setback that the team will be able to relish the strides made in Logano’s second year under the Penske umbrella.

"If you look at the whole deal, all the work, there is a lot to be proud of this season," Gordon said. "Five wins and getting ourselves into the Championship Round are good things. I felt like execution would be the dictator tonight and we didn’t do that. That is the long and the short. We had issues and had them late enough that you can’t recover from them. We had a few and we just didn’t execute."

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