Harvick wins Phoenix, three others join him in Championship round

Kevin Harvick won Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Phoenix, the last race of the Eliminator round of the Chase and penultimate race of the season. This was Harvick's third straight Cup win at the Arizona track, his sixth overall and second season sweep of the track, after 2006. Harvick, in his first season at Stewart-Haas Racing after more than a decade with Richard Childress, joins Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano in the Championship round, which will be contested at Homestead next week with the highest-finishing driver being declared the 2014 series champion. None of the final four drivers have won a Cup championship, although Harvick is a two-time Nationwide champion, in 2001 and 2006.


The race contained several debris cautions as well as a number of crashes. During the first caution, polesitter Denny Hamlin, after leading the first 24 laps, broke a valve stem on pit road, putting him a lap down. Casey Mears appeared to blow a tire early while running in 12th and spun. Last week's winner Jimmie Johnson got damage from another early incident, then spun later and went to the garage. On a restart approaching lap 200 Kyle Busch and Clint Bowyer got caught up in a crash along with Cole Whitt. Championship contender Joey Logano had problems of his own and also found himself a lap down. Hamlin and Logano both rebounded to finish in the top ten.


As the race drew to a close, Jamie McMurray spun and hit the wall, and the final caution came after Landon Cassill and Mike Wallace tangled in turn 4. In that turn on the final lap, as Harvick took the checkered flag, Ryan Newman, the former driver of Harvick's current car at SHR, practically wrecked Kyle Larson to squeeze past Jeff Gordon and get the last spot for the Championship round. Gordon said he had no hard feelings toward Newman and that last week's incident with Brad Keselowski still upset him more. Keselowski was also eliminated after the race. He and Gordon had won a combined ten races this year and were top contenders throughout the Chase, although they almost got eliminated on previous occasions.


Harvick led all but 48 of the race's 312 laps, including all of the last 187 laps. Logano also led 17 laps, while Dale Earnhardt Jr., David Ragan and Michael Annett led some laps under caution during pit cycles.


The four Championship round drivers, with points reset to 5,000:

1. 11-Denny Hamlin - 1 win
2. 22-Joey Logano - 5 wins, 2 in Chase
3. 31-Ryan Newman
4. 4-Kevin Harvick - 4 wins, 2 in Chase

And the four eliminated drivers:
     5.  2-Brad Keselowski - 2,320 points, 6 wins (2 in Chase)
     6.  24-Jeff Gordon - 2,312 points, 4 wins (1 in Chase)
     7.  20-Matt Kenseth - 2,296 points
     8.  99-Carl Edwards - 2,278 points, 2 wins