{"id":28611,"date":"2019-11-04T23:00:07","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T05:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=28611"},"modified":"2019-11-10T12:06:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-10T18:06:34","slug":"one-race-left-to-decide-who-makes-the-championship-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/04\/one-race-left-to-decide-who-makes-the-championship-4\/","title":{"rendered":"One race left to decide who makes the Championship 4 \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kevin Harvick\u2019s victory Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway not only earned him a guaranteed position among the Championship 4 drivers to challenge for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series title \u2013 it certainly upped the intrigue-level for Sunday\u2019s already championship crucial Bluegreen Vacations 500 (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Phoenix\u2019s ISM Raceway.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Busch Beer\/Ducks Unlimited Ford, leads Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Toyota, during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on November 03, 2019 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver, Harvick, was ranked fifth heading into the Texas Playoff race, but by securing a position alongside Martinsville Speedway winner Martin Truex Jr. in the Championship 4 Round that leaves regular season champion Kyle Busch and defending series champion Joey Logano separated by only two points in a tight battle for the top points position and guaranteed spot in the Championship 4 – no matter who wins at Phoenix.<\/p>\n

Texas was a massive scenario shift for the eight title hopefuls, and especially for Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, who has five wins and had been among the top three in the championship standings for the last five weeks of Playoff competition. His 28th-place finish at Texas on Sunday was his worst showing of the Playoffs and only the second time since Daytona in July that he finished a race 20th or worse.<\/p>\n

Hamlin went into Texas ranked second in the points standings and is now fifth, just outside Championship 4 eligibility. He was 24 points ahead of fifth place Harvick prior to the Texas green flag. Now he is in fifth place, 20 points behind fourth place Joey Logano with one race left to decide the 2019 slate of title contenders.<\/p>\n

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch has won the last two races at ISM Raceway, which debuted a major renovation project in last year\u2019s Playoff race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe car and the effort will be there, that\u2019s for sure,” Hamlin said of his Phoenix prospects. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt in my mind that we can go there and win. In these circumstances, I like the challenge. We\u2019re going to go out there and give it our best foot forward and see if we can\u2019t get a win next week.”<\/p>\n

Certainly that\u2019s the same plan of attack for Busch and Logano who lead a tight battle for the all-important final two positions. Should a Playoff driver – currently below the Championship 4 cutline – win on Sunday, that driver is automatically eligible for the Championship 4 Round at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and only one points position will transfer. Should any other driver win, then the top two points positions would be eligible for the Miami season finale.<\/p>\n

Hamlin is in fifth, 20 points behind Logano, followed closely by Team Penske\u2019s Ryan Blaney and Chip Ganassi Racing\u2019s Kyle Larson who are tied in sixth – 23 points behind Logano in the cutoff position. Hendrick Motorsport’s Chase Elliott is eighth, 88 points out and absolutely needing a victory at Phoenix to advance to his first ever Championship 4.<\/p>\n

Busch, a four-race winner in 2019, hasn\u2019t won since the June 2 Pocono Raceway 400-miler \u2013 21 races ago. Logano, a two-race winner in 2019, hasn\u2019t won since the June 9 Michigan race, 20 races ago.<\/p>\n

Certainly Busch\u2019s track record at Phoenix gives the 2015 series champion reason to be optimistic this weekend. His three-victory total is second only to Harvick\u2019s series leading nine wins at the track among the championship hopefuls. Busch and Harvick are the only Playoff drivers with multiple wins at ISM Raceway. And Hamlin, who won in 2012 and Logano, who earned a clutch 2016 Playoff victory, are the only other current Playoff drivers to have celebrated in Phoenix\u2019s Victory Lane.<\/p>\n

Busch, the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, has an impressive 20 top-10 finishes in 28 Phoenix Cup starts and has seven top-five finishes in the last eight races. He has three career runner-up finishes (2011-1, 2016-2 and 2018-1) along with his trio of trophies. And he\u2019s led 536 laps in just the last five races there \u2013 34 percent of all laps run in that time.<\/p>\n

Logano, driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, has 10 top-10 finishes in 21 Phoenix starts but has only a single top 10 (and led 82 laps) in the last five races there. He was 10th this Spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know one guy is going to move through on points and we have to do whatever we have to do in order to be that guy,” Busch said following his seventh-place finish at Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can obviously go to Phoenix and have a strong run and be able to go out there and win, that will put ourselves through as well too. We\u2019re two (points) on the 22 (Logano) so it\u2019s going to be a race between the 18 and the 22 (Logano), imagine that.”<\/p>\n

Busch left no doubt about his focus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s who we\u2019re racing, the 22,” he said. \u201cNo matter what anyone else does, if we finish ahead of him then we\u2019re in.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kevin Harvick\u2019s victory Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway not only earned him a guaranteed position among the Championship 4 drivers to challenge for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series title \u2013 it certainly upped the intrigue-level for Sunday\u2019s already championship crucial Bluegreen Vacations 500 (2:30<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":28575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-28611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-7rt","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/TMS2_MENCS_Harvick_KyBusch_110319.jpg?fit=4324%2C2882","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28612,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28611\/revisions\/28612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}