Bearden Breakdown: Can-Am 500

By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor

Post-race review and analysis from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at ISM Raceway. 

Who Won? 

Kyle Busch. He held off Aric Almirola and Brad Keselowski for his eighth win of 2018.

Who Claimed the Stages?

Busch and Chase Elliott. The contenders traded stage wins early in the race.

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The wreck that changed it all

For 270 of Sunday’s 312 laps, the final spot in the Championship 4 seemed to be up for grabs.

Kevin Harvick dominated early but struggled after suffering an early flat tire. Kurt Busch and Chase Elliott had strong pace, but saw their runs jeopardized by a pair of pit-road penalties.

Clint Bowyer crashed out early and Aric Almirola struggled to rise to contention for the majority of the race. But the other three drivers around the bubble all traded off the potential Championship 4 spot throughout the afternoon.

That is, until Lap 270.

Busch was battling Erik Jones for the lead on a late restart when a three-wide dive from Denny Hamlin led to contact. Busch got knocked into the outside wall, hooked Hamlin and spun down into Elliott, eliminating all three from serious contention in the span of five seconds.

“Erik Jones was on my inside when we restarted and I just wanted to make sure I didn’t slip through the new one and two,” Busch said. “If I could have been to somebody’s outside off two, then I thought we had a good shot of maintaining the lead and I just got cleaned out.  I flat out got cleaned out.”

The incident ended strong playoff runs for Busch and Elliott, instantly changing the focus of Harvick’s race from performance to survival. Busch was left dejected, embraced by team owner Tony Stewart as his best performance of the elimination playoff era proved to be for naught.

“He was just helping me out as a driver, owner,” Busch said. “That’s what Tony Stewart does.  He’s a good individual that knows how to pat somebody on the back and create clarity from the outside on what went on because I only see what happens from the inside of the car.”

Elliott continued on after the accident, but his heavily-damaged No. 9 Chevrolet struggled to maintain speed. The third-year star finished three laps off pace in 23rd, falling well short of playoff advancement. He took blame for his crash afterward, noting the track position he lost to an early speeding penalty on pit road.

“Don’t speed before that and you don’t get caught back there in the back,” he said. “It was completely my fault and when you make mistakes like that, you get put behind and that’s when you get wrecked.”

Sunday marked the second-straight year Elliott has been eliminated in the Round of 8, despite a strong three-win campaign that propelled him into contention this season. The Georgian’s lost opportunity ultimately came down to playoff points his Hendrick Motorsports team missed out on during their difficult regular season.

“You just have to make the most of opportunities,” he said. “The whole year counts. Those guys, winning a lot of races throughout the season, is what kept them away from a pressure-filled situation.

“All the bonus points they built up pretty much got them to Homestead, and that that’s the way that step stone is meant to work. It pays to win. So, we’ll try to win more next year.”

Hamlin took blame for the incident, owning up to a mistake made while chasing his first win of the year. The Virginian was attempting to keep from suffering his first winless season since joining the Cup Series full time in 2006.

“I got loose and I chased it up the race track and he (Kurt Busch) was right there,” Hamlin said. “Then it looked like he hit the wall and I was up there and kind of pinched him and then hit the wall again. It was not going to be good. He kind of turned us then, but I can’t blame him.”

Hamlin also took the time to apologize to Busch, claiming he was rooting for the veteran to make a Championship 4 appearance.

“Kurt’s been fair to me in so many years of racing,” he said. “I’ve never had one incident with him, he’s been as fair to me as anyone out there and I hate it for him because trust me, I was rooting for him – all of today I was rooting for the 41 to be the guy that got in there.

“Ultimately we have to go out there to try to race to win and we were battling hard off the corner. Just ran out of real estate for sure.”

Hamlin later tweeted that he and Busch quickly reconciled their friendship – a positive twist at the end of a difficult day for three of NASCAR’s biggest stars.

Me and Kurt spoke at the plane and shared a beer afterwards. Got nothing but respect for him and his guys. We will head to homestead and try to finish off strong.

— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) November 12, 2018

The ensuing battle

The crash between Hamlin, Busch and Elliott aided Harvick’s march to the Championship 4, but it didn’t guarantee him a spot. Bowyer was already out of contention by that stage, but Aric Almirola ran within sight of the leaders after spending most of the day in the top 10.

Almirola was arguably the weakest of the Stewart-Haas Racing Fords on the day, struggling to progress further than the back half of the top 10 for the majority of the afternoon. But when the trio ahead of him crashed out, the Floridian was given a newfound chance to contend.

The green flag flew on Lap 276, and Almirola began to march forward. He rose to the top five and got as high as third when another caution flew on Lap 287. On the ensuing restart Almirola rose to second, and though he had nothing for leader Kyle Busch on long runs, a second late caution on Lap 296 gave Almirola a chance to restart from the front row.

Harvick trailed just behind in third, following Busch on the inside row, and a win for Almirola would have eliminated the veteran — arguably Busch’s strongest enemy in the fight for the championship.

Busch was never going to purposefully let Almirola win. But if Almirola had been able to complete a pass, the Nevadan admitted to being unsure of what his next plan may be.

“Obviously having the restart with Almirola next to me, he’s going to try to do some things, so you’ve got to be ready for some of those moments and what’s going to happen,” Busch said. “But overall I just knew that if I got a good restart and just got myself out front and got clear that I could go away and not have to race any of these guys and worry about that.

“You know, I was just kind of contemplating if he got by me and got in front of me, then what’s next, you know, but my first — always first and foremost is just go away.” 

Thankfully for Busch, his backup plan never had to be executed. The veteran powered away from Almirola on the final restart and held Keselowski off for a spirited victory. Almirola followed a distant fourth, having fallen just shy of a playoff-advancing win despite a gutsy drive.

“I thought we were a seventh- to sixth-place car and that’s what I thought we were yesterday too,” Almirola said. “Johnny and all these guys fought their guts out and I fought my guts out inside the race car and gave it everything we had.  We took a seventh or eighth-place car and the next thing you know we were in position to win the race.”

Almirola’s near-miss occurred in his first year with SHR, showing the 34-year-old’s ability when given top-tier equipment. He took solace in his team’s impressive early showing, though the loss still stung deeply.

“This is our first year working together,” Almirola said. “You look at all the teams we’re racing and they’ve got four, five, six, seven years working together, so what we’ve accomplished in one year is a hell of a lot.

“But right now all I can think about is being inside of Kyle down there in the new one and two and just not being able to get the power down to get up beside him.  It’s bittersweet.  It was a good day for us, but today we needed to win and we didn’t win.”

Oh, this group again

This season marks the first time Harvick, Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Joey Logano have made up the entirety of the Championship 4. But it’s far from the first time the quartet has earned an opportunity to contend for a title at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Busch’s win Sunday erased any doubt of his elimination, securing the 2015 winner into the Championship 4 for the fourth-consecutive season. Harvick’s survival gave him his fourth title race bid in five years. Truex clinched his third appearance in the last four seasons, and Logano snagged his third title opportunity as well.

All told, this year’s top quartet have accounted for 14 title opportunities out of a possible 20 in the opening five years of the elimination playoff era, accounting for 70% of all Championship 4 appearances.

Three of the four drivers have claimed a title. The fourth — Logano — came one late crash with Carl Edwards short of securing one for himself in 2016. That level of recent success makes separating the group into favorites and dark horses a challenge.

Busch will enter the season finale with the momentum of a Phoenix win, but the Joe Gibbs Racing star was hesitant to lean on momentum heading into the last race.

“I’d like to think it gives us a lot, but I don’t know – talk is cheap,” he said. “We’ve got to be able to go out there and perform and just do what we need to do. Being able to do what we did here today was certainly beneficial.

“I didn’t think we were the best car, but we survived and we did what we needed to do today. It’s just about getting to next week and once we were locked in, it was ‘all bets are off and it’s time to go.’

Harvick left a nail-biter in Arizona with a clean slate, his championship hopes restored. Even with backup crew chief Tony Gibson atop the box, the 2014 Cup champ believes his team has what it takes to win in Homestead.

“I think we have a chance every time we show up.  Our guys are doing a great job obviously to accomplish everything we did this weekend was quite the feat without your crew chief and car chief, but Tony Gibson and Nick did a great job filling in and everybody kept their head about them and we were competitive all weekend.”

Truex and Logano struggled in Phoenix – the first ending his day 13th, and the latter crashing out in 37th with an early flat tire.

The defending Cup champion, Truex endured one of the most challenging runs of his playoff career in Phoenix. But the New Jersey native emerged with the end goal accomplished, giving Furniture Row Racing an opportunity to leave the Cup Series with a second title in hand next weekend.

“We’re going to Miami,” he said. “Just happy and thankful for our team and everybody that supports this Toyota, TRD, Bass Pro Shops, 5-hour ENERGY and everybody that makes this possible. Cole (Pearn, crew chief) and all the guys, it’s an unbelievable group.

“One last hoorah next week and we’ll go give them all we’ve got.”

Logano attempted to shrug off his wreck, shifting focus onto Miami after an incident outside of his control.

“There’s nothing my team could do different, so there’s really nothing to get depressed about,” he said. “We’re just staying confident and keeping our heads high because I still feel like we’ve got a great shot at winning this championship when we get to Miami.  This doesn’t affect anything.”

Other Notes

• Rookies William Byron and Darrell Wallace Jr. excelled at ISM Raceway, tallying a pair of top-10s. The result came with added significance for Byron, as the Hendrick Motorsports prospect locked up the Rookie of the Year award.
• Matt Kenseth couldn’t match his emotional victory from last year’s fall Phoenix trip, but the 2003 Cup champion did tally his first top-10 of the year, coming home seventh for Roush Fenway Racing.
• Rick Ware Racing needed help from Premium Motorsports to even race on Sunday after losing their primary car to a brake issue on the opening lap of practice. Cody Ware made good on the second chance, finishing a career-best 28th.
• Tanner Berryhill’s Cup debut came with controversy in Phoenix. The former Xfinity Series driver spun twice to force two caution flags that altered the playoff picture at the time, causing sizable swings for various contenders. Berryhill came home 31st for Obaika Racing.