Chase finale at Homestead: NASCAR down to four to settle the score

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Three of the four finalists for NASCAR’s Chase championship had a little fun with each other late Sunday night.

As a cold mist and drizzle continued to drape Phoenix International Raceway, they tried to downplay their own chances of coming out on top next week at a presumably sunny and warm Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“The past champion probably has – if anybody has – an advantage,” said Jeff Gordon of Kevin Harvick, the 2014 champ.

“(Gordon’s) got four championships, so I think he’s got the advantage,” countered Harvick.

Kyle Busch then grabbed a microphone.

“I’ve got (no titles),” Busch said. “I’m playing with house money, so I’ve got the advantage.”

Just minutes earlier, the Quicken Loans 500 – the final race in the third round of the Chase – had come to a rain-shortened end. As happened the week before in Texas, a non-Chase driver had won, in this instance Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Earnhardt’s victory, his third of the season, meant that Harvick and Busch, along with Martin Truex Jr., make it to the championship round on points. They’ll be joined by Gordon, whose victory at Martinsville in the first race of the round had already ensured him a spot.

“This is a great group to be a part of,” said Gordon, who is retiring after this season and whose four championships all came in NASCAR’s pre-Chase era. “We’re excited about the opportunity to go down there. Certainly for me, my final race. I can’t think of anything sweeter than just having that opportunity to go down there and battle for the championship and see what happens.”

Gordon will be the sentimental favorite to win in South Florida. But the three drivers he will face – the highest finisher of the four will win the title – all have their own reasons to be optimistic.

Harvick had the fastest car for much of the season, winning two races early and being consistent enough for the rest of the regular season that he finished second an astounding 10 times.

After a tough start to the Chase (an accident in the opener at Chicagoland dropped him to 15th in the 16-driver Chase), Harvick rallied with a season-saving victory at Dover (Del.) International Speedway.

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.

That allowed Harvick to stay in the Chase. He came to Phoenix hoping to win for a fifth consecutive time at the 1-mile track in the desert and led for 143 of the rain-shorted race’s 219 laps. But he was in good enough shape in the standings to advance with a second-place finish.

“It’s definitely been a Chase that’s been a little bit up and down for us,” Harvick said. “But the guys have battled through and we’ve survived a lot of situations to be in contention next week. You always want to win when you have a car like we had (Sunday), but I’ll take it again (at Homestead).”

That Busch even qualified for the Chase was one of the season’s bigger accomplishments. He missed the first 11 races, recovering from a broken leg and foot suffered in the season-opening Xfinity race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.

He returned with a vengeance, and, after being granted a waiver by NASCAR that allowed him to be eligible despite not competing in every race, won four of five races during one stretch.

Now, Busch, who has never made it this far in the Chase, is one race away from a championship.

“I’m just pleased that I didn’t have any bad luck,” Busch said of this year’s Chase. “We haven’t necessarily had good luck in the Chase, but we did in the summer, definitely. We’ve done some good things in the Chase. We’ve run up front, we’ve run strong. We’ve also had some mishaps, but fortunately they weren’t big enough to eliminate us.”

Truex would be considered the least likely of the four to make it to Homestead. The only driver for a one-car team, Colorado-based Furniture Row Racing, Truex won at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway. His 14th-place finish Sunday broke a string of eight consecutive top-10 finishes in the Chase. He edged Carl Edwards by five points for the final spot.

“We’ve overcome a lot of odds and I’m just proud to be part of this group,” Truex said. “I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to do something that we’ve all dreamed about our whole lives next weekend.