Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. to vie for NASCAR championship

Clearly Kevin Harvick possessed the superior car and was well-positioned for a win Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, which would have been his fifth straight at that track.

But when rain wreaked havoc during the final laps, Harvick ended up finishing runner-up to Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won the rain-shortened penultimate race of the season. Not that Harvick was going to complain with the result considering how the chaotic events played out, as it was good enough to advance him to the championship round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff.

“I don’t want to be greedy and be disappointed with how it went today when you look at the big picture,” Harvick said. “I think it’s definitely been a Chase that’s been a little bit up and down for us, but the guys have battled through, and we’ve survived a lot of situations to be in contention for next week.

“You always want to win when you have a car like we did today, but I’ll take it again next week.”

Harvick will defend his Sprint Cup championship against Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Gordon earned his place by virtue of winning Nov. 1 at Martinsville Speedway, while Harvick, Busch and Truex transferred via being the three highest-ranked drivers in points.

That Harvick made it this far is no surprise, as he had the dominant car for much of the regular season, which carried over into the Chase. But self-induced mistakes and a lack of mechanical reliability had him teetering on elimination throughout the playoffs.

Sunday, though, the No. 4 team was nearly flawless and there were no gremlins to put Harvick and crew chief Rodney Childers in scramble mode. Harvick started eighth and wasted little time assuming control, leading a race-high 143 laps.

The only interruption came in the form of rain, which came just after a sequence of green-flag pit stops and allowed Earnhardt to jump into the lead 113 laps from the scheduled finish. And when the precipitation increased, NASCAR had little recourse but to deem the race official and award Earnhardt the victory.

“It’s kind of bittersweet,” Harvick said. “The car just really performed well today and we were able to lead a lot of laps and just really proud of the guys for the decisions that they made overnight to get that last little bit out of the car today and how it performed was really good. Just the caution came out at the wrong time, and we didn’t get to make up the ground on the racetrack under green.”

Busch finished fourth at Phoenix to easily move on, with Gordon sixth. The battle for the final spot in next week’s finale came down to Truex and Carl Edwards, with just five points being the ultimate difference.

Also failing to advance were Joey Logano, Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski.

Aware of his precarious position as the first driver below the cut line, Edwards implored NASCAR not to call the race prematurely even as the rain increased.

“We can’t let it end like this,” Edwards radioed to his team as the field circled under caution.

While a case could be made why the other three Chase finalists could drive away with the championship, it will be Harvick who enters Homestead as the favorite to score a second straight title.

Although the sentimental favorite in his final season before retirement, Gordon has largely struggled this year on intermediate tracks like Homestead. As for Busch and Truex, neither has ever gone into the decisive race in contention whereas Harvick and Gordon, a four-time champ, have no shortage of experience.

“When I set out into this season and made the announcement that I made, I just hoped that this could possibly happen,” Gordon said. “And now, it’s not enough for us just to go down there and be a part of it. We want to go there and push hard and get every single thing we can out of ourselves and our team and see if we can’t give these guys a run for their money.”