Kyle Busch wins Spint Cup Series Championship

Gordon’s bid for a championship made it easy for those close to him to put off that this would be his last race but the community understood.

Busch didn’t have to win Sunday’s race, but he did have to be the first of the four contenders to cross the finish line. Busch got the jump in the first turn and easily cleared Keselowski.

It has been a stellar year for Joe Gibbs Racing, the owner of Busch’s auto.

Busch and his brother Kurt Busch (2004 NSCS champion) join Terry and Bobby Labonte as the only brothers to earn NSCS titles..

Jeff Gordon celebrates his second Winston Cup Championship at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga., on November 16, 1997.

“I was just terrified that he was really, really in bad shape”, said crew chief Adam Stevens. “I thought I was gonna have to go back to laying decals”, Busch said post-race.

“It’s really awesome, awesome, awesome”, he continued.

“That was a special moment for me”, Gordon said. The field headed to pit road, Busch asked for an adjustment, and was second on the restart with seven laps remaining.

“But I’m not going anywhere”.

“I don’t know that you could have scripted it any better”, Busch said of beating Gordon, his former teammate at Hendrick Motorsports. “I can’t say enough and thank the good Lord above”.

The season finale is delayed because of rain.

There was a strong sentimental push for Gordon to go out on top in his final race.

At the front, the lead was proving to be something of a poisoned chalice and hard to hold on to for very long. Harvick was the defending series champion.

He kept doing well and kept advancing, until he was in the Championship Round with Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon and Martin Truex Jr. “But just congratulations to the No. 18 team and everything they did”. His talent is undeniable; his record 76 victories in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and 34 wins in the top-level Cup Series are ample evidence of that. He got to go out with his entire family by his side and two racing legends, Mario Andretti and Lewis Hamilton, on his pit box.

Gordon and Harvick each led the race at various points.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wears a Jeff Gordon tribute cap during driver introductions at the NASCAR Sprint Cup race Sunday, November 22, 2015, at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla. Gordon, 44, said before the season started he would retire after this race.

Remembering the lessons learned from Truex’s earlier gambit, no one was willing to be caught out on old tyres for the restart and so there was one final visit to pit road.

In his first four races back, Busch was just so-so, with a best finish of ninth at Pocono and finishes of 36 at Dover and 43 at MI. I wasn’t expecting that.’ I didn’t want Harvick behind me. “So to me, yeah, there’s going to be a few insanity and I’m just taking it all in and being really calm and cool about it all”. “I don’t know why Brad chose the bottom and he gave me the top”. I was already a fan of his and he won the championship and we stayed in touch.

After dropping out of the top 10, Gordon fought his way back to sixth at the finish and ended his last season third in the final standings, still without a championship under the Chase format. He led nine laps early. Truex Jr. placed 12. “We didn’t come here saying we’d be OK finishing fourth, we tried everything in our power to make it happen”. And the longer the run went, the looser that we would get up off the corner.

“It’s been a great couple of years and I’m looking forward to next year”. So, it’s fun to be able to run like this. He had a chance to win the race. “For him to be in his last year and go out, I wish I could have beat him sooner in that time, when was still running or had another year to go after it”. I just love the guy. He came back into the race three laps down, but clawed his way back and finished 10th.

It might not have been the ending they wanted, but there’s still a lot to be proud of. All the respect that was paid to him, including that Kevin (Harvick) and Kyle (Busch) showed him. We took 2 early, and it didn’t work out.

“The big news is: I’m driving today”, McGraw joked. “It wasn’t for lack of effort”. Busch said becoming a father changed his perspective. “I don’t know what he did, but he came out of it even better than he was before”.

No, the primary focus was the three-way battle for the championship between Bill Elliott, Davey Allison and privateer Alan Kulwicki.

Busch, who received a medical waiver from NASCAR to become eligible, left no doubt that he deserved to be there after putting together a streak reminiscent of such champions as Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.