Avondale, AZ (SportsNetwork.com) – Kevin Harvick put on a dominating
performance to win Sunday’s Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix
International Raceway and automatically clinch one of the four spots for next
week’s championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Harvick led 264 of 312 laps to win a Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix for the
third consecutive time. It was also his record-extending sixth victory at this
1-mile racetrack.
Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman will join Harvick as the four
drivers battling for the Sprint Cup title on Nov. 16 at Homestead. Jeff
Gordon, the four-time series champion, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Brad
Keselowski, the 2012 titleholder, were eliminated from the Chase.
Phoenix was the elimination race in the Eliminator Round of the Chase.
Hamlin finished fifth and Logano sixth after both drivers rebounded from one-
lap deficits earlier in the race. Newman bumped rookie Kyle Larson out of
the way on the last turn of the final lap to take 11th place, which allowed
him to advance to the final four by only one point over Gordon, who finished
second.
Kenseth finished third and Keselowski fourth, but Kenseth missed the cut by
just three points and Keselowski by eight. Edwards’ 15th-place run put him 15
points short of advancing.
