Rain-shortened race was quintessential NASCAR

When Harvick did win Dover, and damaged his vehicle during the celebration, his competitors cried foul and said he did it on goal to prevent NASCAR from conducting a thorough post-race inspection. “I didn’t say I was happy”, Harvick told a TV reporter just after climbing out of his auto after the call to end the race. Crew chief Greg Ives brought Earnhardt into the pits during a green-flag cycle just as the caution flew for a two-car crash involving Joey Gase and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. “But, in the end, the big picture is what it’s all about”. Harvick is the defending champion and Busch has done everything in NASCAR except win a Sprint Cup (well, maybe miss 11 races and still be able to win a championship).

In the final race of the second round, at Talladega, the engine in Harvick’s No. 4 Chevy was failing, but he protected himself during a late restart by basically getting in the way of the cars behind him and causing an accident. Busch did more than that. Swept all three races in the second round, but was caught up in wrecks and controversy with Matt Kenseth that put him in a must-win situation at Phoenix. He followed up with consecutive wins at Kentucky, Loudon, N.H. and Indianapolis and finished 30th in points as NASCAR required to gain an invitation into the Chase. “Last year I got to experience that the first time, and it’s definitely different”. Busch is guaranteed equaling the best placing of his Sprint Cup career, having finished fourth overall in 2013. Busch has been prolific over the past six years, but has never so much as won a single race during a Chase he was competing in. & comeback kid Kyle Busch will join four-time champion Jeff Gordon – in his remaining profession Cup race – to determine the 2015 Sprint Cup Collection title next weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Jr. had his third win of the season.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It’s my last one and I couldn’t be more excited or more determined to go down there and do what it takes”.

So here we go again in 2015.

“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”. “It’s hard to play in the race with rain in the area”.

“The vehicle has been fast, and if you’re fast – we’ve been fast all year, just haven’t qualified well enough to give ourselves the track position and give us the pit selection that we need and give us the advantage we need like tonight. You always want to win when you have a vehicle like today, but I’ll take it”. Dale Earnhardt Jr. said earlier last week that (even though he’s Jeff Gordon’s teammate), he’s pulling for Truex.

“I’ve got (no championships). It works out for some, and some it doesn’t”.

It happened thanks to a rain-shortened race at Phoenix, which trimmed the final 93 laps off an event that wasalready delayed almost seven hours. While on pit road, Earnhardt crossed the scoring line at the flag stand before Harvick, who had dominated with 143 laps led, got to the stripe. Instead, your victor and Chase spoiler would be Dale Earnhardt Jr., the only driver to really challenge Harvick after he passed Johnson around 40 laps into the race.