Kevin Harvick extends Phoenix streak

Kevin Harvick took his fourth straight win in the Sprint Cup Series at Phoenix on Sunday in the CampingWorld.com 500, a 500-kilometer, 312-mile race. It was Harvick's second straight win and seventh straight top-two finish in the series. This gives Harvick seven total wins at the Arizona track, more than any other driver. Up front with Harvick during much of the race was his teammate, reinstated driver Kurt Busch, who tried a couple of times to take the lead but could get get by Harvick's fast car. Their boss and teammate Tony Stewart spun after being hit by Paul Menard, and then with 24 laps to go had a tire going down and hit the frontstretch wall.

Several right rear tires encountered issues during the race. Sam Hornish Jr. lost his right rear and spun on the backstretch on lap 112. The same thing happened to Dale Earnhardt Jr. on lap 182 in turn 3. Earnhardt, who had three straight top-fives to start the season, including a third in the Daytona 500 in which he came in as the defending champion, wound up finishing in 43rd and last place, moving down the running order as Brian Vickers and Michael Annett got back on the track after spending time in the garage. Vickers hit the wall on lap 3 and Earnhardt's teammate Jimmie Johnson got a piece of this incident, subsequently dropping to 40th before slowly climbing back up the leaderboard. Clint Bowyer also reported his right rear going down around the time of a restart.

Drivers who had a good race were Jeff Gordon, who stayed out of trouble after three straight weeks of misfortune; Martin Truex Jr. with a fourth straight top-ten finish driving for a lower-level team; as well as Ryan Newman, Jamie McMurray and Matt Kenseth, who all won in 2013 but not in 2014, and came close to ending their winless streaks.

With two of three race weekends in NASCAR's west coast swing in the books, the Xfinity and Sprint Cup Series head to Fontana, California in the greater Los Angeles area next Sunday for the 200-lap Auto Club 400, whose two-time defending champion is the injured Kyle Busch, at the same start time of about 3:45 pm eastern.

Race Results:

1. (1) 4-Kevin Harvick - Chevrolet - 312 laps, led 224 laps
2. (3) 1-Jamie McMurray - Chevrolet - 312 laps, led 1 lap
3. (5) 31-Ryan Newman - Chevrolet - 312 laps
4. (9) 5-Kasey Kahne - Chevrolet - 312 laps
5. (8) 41-Kurt Busch - Chevrolet - 312 laps
6. (6) 2-Brad Keselowski - Ford - 312 laps, led 52 laps
7. (15) 78-Martin Truex Jr. - Chevrolet - 312 laps
8. (2) 22-Joey Logano - Ford - 312 laps, led 35 laps
9. (10) 24-Jeff Gordon - Chevrolet - 312 laps
10. (12) - 42-Kyle Larson - Chevrolet - 312 laps