Denny Hamlin wins the final pole of the season at Homestead

“I disagree with Kyle”, said Gordon, who recovered from a lackluster opening lap in the first round of knockout qualifying to earn the fifth starting spot.

Over the last nine weeks of the Chase, the field of 16 contenders has been cut to four. Waltrip is a favorite among NASCAR fans due to his folksy and down to earth commentary style while Gordon is a highly popular current driver about to enter retirement. Two years ago? I would have been a mess.

Starting last season the Chase was structured in a four-round playoff format.

Truex has three…in 368 races. Harvick has one win at Homestead (2014) and a series-best average finish of 7.5 at the track. The TV cameras will capture every second of this. The pole was Hamlin’s 23rd of his career and his first at Homestead where he has two wins.

In fact, the London, Ontario, native was an engineer for Kevin Harvick’s vehicle at Richard Childress Racing before accepting a supporting role at Furniture Row and serving as lead engineer under crew chief Todd Berrier.

With his three straight victories, Logano became the wins leader of 2015 with six trips to victory lane. Kenseth intentionally wrecked Logano in retaliation for Logano causing him to spin at Kansas City. Chase driver Brad Keslowski, who was leading most of the race, came within five laps of a victory. It’s in remission now, and she has three chemotherapy sessions remaining. Last week’s race at Phoenix was delayed by seven hours, then was shortened by rain. Instead, it was Dale Earnhardt Jr. who got the boot. “I hope he finishes third behind Kyle”.

“We’ve not qualified as well this year as we had last year, especially on a few of these types of racetracks”, Harvick said. As for the Championship 4, Jeff Gordon set the pace in ninth.

NASCAR granted Busch a waiver that allowed him to be eligible for the Chase despite missing those 11 races.

Harvick responded with a dominating win at Dover. That means once the race gets to half distance, it’s official, which could throw strategy out the window.

At Talladega Harvick again was in danger of missing the four driver cut in the Contender Round.

Martin Truex Jr. continued to struggle to find the balance in his No. 78 FRR Chevrolet, radioing: “No different”.

“The very first run that final practice was great”.

Gordon’s 31st-place finish that day was no indication of what was to come.

The four-time champion will still be in race mode, so it won’t have hit him yet that it’s really his final start. During the season-opening Xfinity race at Daytona (Fla.) worldwide Speedway, Busch’s Toyota crashed into an interior wall. Busch went on to win three consecutive races at Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Indianapolis.

Yet Harvick is still standing, back at Homestead-Miami and primed to join an elite group of drivers who have won back-to-back championships. Truex was booted from the Chase when NASCAR determined that Michael Waltrip Racing manipulated the outcome of the race in a bid to get Truex into the Chase.

Gordon was fifth in qualifying for the final race of his career. USA TODAY Sports’ Brant James discusses what Gordon has meant to NASCAR. He finished outside of the top ten in half of the first 20 races.

By that time most of his rivals had followed the lead of Gordon’s Hendrick Motorsport team and begun hiring younger drivers to try to beat him.

Gordon, for his part, will not be going out quietly.

Denny Hamlin will start on the pole for Sunday’s season ending Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway after he took the top spot in the final round of qualifying on Friday night.

Jeff Gordon still has the special memento from his first race in what is now NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series.

On Sunday Gordon will attempt something that has never happened before – win a NASCAR Sprint Cup championship in his 797th and final race.