NASCAR’s championship 4 a dream class

He would have restarted (and ended up finishing) third on the race’s next restart behind Earnhardt Jr. and Harvick. As Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the race, they joined Jeff Gordon for the right to drive for the title.

“We’ve overcome a lot of odds and I’m just proud to be part of this group”, said Truex. The precipitation started about 90 minutes before the scheduled 12:45 p.m. MT start, and every time NASCAR and its Air Titan track dryers just about got the track ready for competition, another wave of showers rolled in. “But, hey, you lose a few and you win a few like that”.

Right or wrong this is the current structure in place. For Busch, getting a chance to race for NASCAR’s top-level title seemed a little unbelievable. Think about Kyle Busch who ended up with two broken legs from an XFINITY Series race wreck the afternoon before the Daytona 500.

The Chase for the Sprint Cup ends next Sunday at Homestead with the Ford EcoBoost 400. Busch did more than that. Four races into his 2015 season, he won four of five races and finished the year with 11 Top 5s and 15 Top 10s. I got a little nervous when the caution came out, but all in all we did what we had to do. “I’m playing with house money, so I’ve got the advantage”. He literally had to win the race to win the championship previous year, and he did just that. “I want to give (crew chief) Greg (Ives) a lot of credit, and the guys”. He’s quietly contended his way to Homestead, much like Ryan Newman did in the inaugural year of this championship format, and now he has the one-in-four chance at a championship he would have only dreamed of in last year’s disastrous debut season at Richard Childress Racing affiliate Furniture Row Racing in which he finished 24th. We all feel it. I think it’s going to be a dynamic added to the booth that maybe we’ve been missing of late. You know in the caution came out and assure that stuff and cross the start finish line and allow us to he’s their leader he felt like we were back.

“We’ve just been in planning mode for trying to be in the Chase and planning mode for trying to make it to Homestead as a team. We’ll go do the same thing next week”.

The race, which determines which four drivers will race heads-up for the Cup Series title on November 21 at Homestead, was called 93 laps early because of rain. And, he said, it helps continue one of his best Chase runs ever. “We had many opportunities to try to get ourselves to the font, we just weren’t as fast (as Harvick)”. We were a solid second-place auto, but Junior timed it out really well when they pitted to that caution and it worked our really well for them. Earnhardt Jr. said it came down to the leadership of team owner Rick Hendrick. But Kenseth wouldn’t have it and deliberately crashed him, an act that led to a two-race suspension.

The race was delayed almost seven hours as a series of storms passed through the area, forcing the penultimate race in the Chase for the Cup under the lights at the mile oval.

After the race Sunday, a reporter pointed out to Gordon that he’s closing in on 25,000 laps led during his racing career, and can get there with 80 more next weekend.