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Bob PockrassNASCAR
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kevin Harvick, racing amid a swirl of controversy over an illegal rear spoiler from a win a week ago at Texas Motor Speedway, didn’t need to win Sunday at ISM Raceway.
All he needed was a solid day at Phoenix and a little bit of help in the Can-Am 500. He got the help from Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin to keep his championship hopes alive.
Busch won the race to keep any driver behind Harvick in points from winning — Aric Almirola finished fourth — and Hamlin caused a wreck that took out two of the best cars in Kurt Busch and Chase Elliott, both of whom could have knocked Harvick out of the playoffs if they earned an automatic championship berth with a win.
Harvick finished fifth and wound up with a 28-point edge for the last spot in points to make the four-driver championship field. He will compete with Kyle Busch, Joey Logano and defending champion Martin Truex Jr. for the title next Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
But that margin does not show just how close Harvick was to missing the cut. He led the first 73 laps before a flat tire forced him to pit under green and put him a lap down. He was able to rally and run in the top-5 but he no longer had the dominant car.
“That [flat] was really the turning point in our day, to not have everything go right,” said Harvick, who has nine Cup wins at Phoenix in his career. “We got ourselves back in contention there, and we’re going in the right direction and wound up just finding a spot at the end to just survive there and get to the finish.”
Harvick couldn’t breathe easy until that restart with 12 laps to go when Almirola could not hang with Busch and eventually got passed by Brad Keselowski and Kyle Larson.
“I just needed to get my car set on the bottom and try to get everything so that I could get a good exit off the corner, and that was really all I was worried about [and not Almirola],” he said about the restart
Harvick could have been worried about other drivers besides Almriola if it wasn’t for a wreck with 43 laps left when Hamlin slid into Kurt Busch and then collected Elliott. Kurt Busch had led 52 laps before having to rally from a pit-road entry penalty to second and Elliott had led 16 laps and was a threat for the win.
“If I could have been to somebody’s outside off [Turn] 2, then I thought we had a good shot of maintaining the lead and I just got cleaned out,” Kurt Busch said. “I flat out got cleaned out.”
Kurt Busch entered the day just three points behind Harvick for the final spot after a 40-point penalty earlier this week for that illegal Texas spoiler dropped Harvick in the standings and prohibited him from using the Texas victory for an automatic championship berth.
“I just didn’t get the job done to get us to Homestead,” Kurt Busch said.
Hamlin said it was his fault.
“Obviously two guys racing for a win,” Hamlin said. “That’s kind of the crappy part about all this. Everybody is racing for something. We had an opportunity there. … I got loose and I chased it up the race track and he was right there.”
Hamlin knows Busch was angry and believes once Busch was in the wall, Busch turned down on him to cause more damage to the cars — and Hamlin totally understood the move.
“I was up there and kind of pinched him,” Hamlin said. “Once he hit the wall, he just conceded that it’s not going to be good and so he turned us. I can’t blame him. Kurt’s been fair to me for 13 straight years of racing.
“I’ve never had one incident. He’s been as fair to me as anyone out there and I hate it for him. Trust me, I was rooting for him. All today I was rooting for the 41 to be the guy to get in there.”
Elliott was angry that a speeding penalty ended up putting him in a position to be in a wreck.
“It was completely my fault and when you make mistakes like that — you get put behind and that’s when you get wrecked,” Elliott said.
Clint Bowyer crashed early in the race to be eliminated. He had a horrible third round of the playoffs while a driver such as Almirola had a decent run but not good enough.
“All these guys fought their guts out and I fought my guts out inside the race car and gave it everything we had,” Almirola said. “We took a seventh- or eighth-place car and the next thing you know we were in position to win the race.”