Kevin Harvick took the 2014 Sprint Cup Series championship by winning the race at Homestead on Sunday. Harvick held off Ryan Newman, who finished second in the final points with his second-place finish. There was a long series of cautions near the end of the race due to crashes and debris, setting up a three-lap dash to the checkered flag and the showdown between Harvick and Newman. Harvick had a faster car and Newman, who barely made it into the final four coming to the finish at Phoenix last week, couldn't catch him. It was a close race, as Harvick beat Newman in the final standings by just one point.
This is the first Cup championship for the almost 39-year-old Harvick, coming in his 14th season in the series. He won two championships in what was then the Busch Series (soon to be the Xfinity Series) with Richard Childress in 2001 and 2006. Harvick spent his first 13 years in Cup at Richard Childress Racing as well, making his series debut in the second race of 2001 in Rockingham, North Carolina, following the death of Dale Earnhardt in the Daytona 500 the week before. Earnhardt's #3 Chevrolet was changed to the #29 upon Harvick's sudden promotion to Cup. Harvick finished third in points three times with RCR, in 2010, 2011 and 2013. After the 2013 season, Harvick replaced Ryan Newman at Stewart Haas Racing in the #39 Chevrolet, which became the #4. Newman did the reverse, going from SHR to RCR to replace Jeff Burton in the #31 Chevrolet. As it turned out on Sunday, the championship this year would come down to Harvick and Newman, with Harvick coming out on top with five wins in his first year with a new team.
Finishing third in the championship and seventh in the race was Joe Gibbs' driver Denny Hamlin, the runner-up to Jimmie Johnson in 2010. Hamlin won one race this season, the spring outing at Talladega. Fourth was Team Penske's Joey Logano, a former teammate of Hamlin. Logano had a bad pit stop late in the race and ultimately finished the race in 16th place. Logano's teammate, 2012 champion Brad Keselowski, who won more races (six) than any other cup driver in 2014, finished third in the race, while Newman's teammate Paul Menard, who had a tire explosion in this race last year, finished fourth. Polesitter Jeff Gordon, one of the four Chasers eliminated last week, led 161 of 267 laps and finished tenth. Last year's champion Jimmie Johnson finished eleventh in the final points, making this his first-ever points finish outside the top ten in Cup excluding his three-race practice run at the end of the 2001 season. Following the race, Johnson's crew chief Chad Knaus was called to the NASCAR hauler for an undisclosed reason, and this along with Harvick's race and championship wins were widely discussed on social media.
It was a wild season, with moments such as most popular driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. having his most successful season in a decade, including his second Daytona 500 win in a rain-delayed marathon, underdogs Aric Almirola and A.J. Allmendinger winning races, that crazy rain-filled weekend at Daytona in July that was the site of Almirola's Cup win, the spring race at Bristol getting rained out until after dark and then ending under caution due to an accidental light trigger, the new Chase and qualifying formats, and all of those fights during Chase races, including those involving Brad Keselowski at Charlotte and Texas. And it all led to the final battle at Homestead on top, with Kevin Harvick getting that much-awaited Sprint Cup trophy.
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