HOMESTEAD, Florida — Kyle Busch was a winner twice in the Ford EcoBoost 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, claiming the race win and his first Sprint Cup championship.
Fellow championship competitor Kevin Harvick finished second, while Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Kyle Larson rounded out the top five.
Jeff Gordon, also a title contender, wrapped up his Sprint Cup driving career with a sixth-place finish. The fourth championship candidate, Martin Truex Jr., wound up outside the top 10 in 12th.
The race started an hour-and-a-half late due to a rain delay.
Keselowski took the lead on a restart just past lap 170. After a green-flag cycle of pit stops around lap 215, Keselowski cycled back to the front and led until Busch got by for the top spot on a restart with seven laps remaining after a caution for debris on the track. Soon thereafter Harvick also overtook Keselowski for second.
Larson said in a Tweet that he thought he “was one water bottle away from my first Cup win,” but congratulated Busch on “such an amazing comeback story you had this year!”
Early on, all four championship contenders ran in or near the top five of the running order. Truex, though, gradually faded to the back of the top 10, and after a lap-46 yellow flag, Gordon joined him there as he struggled with handling issues. Both also dropped a few positions outside the top 10 at times.
Busch and Harvick, on the other hand, ran inside the top five throughout the race, both of them leading laps.
Truex got back up front with a two-tire pit strategy during a caution on lap 169. But when the race returned to green, he was overtaken by several cars that took four tires and drifted back outside the top 10.
Busch missed the first 11 Cup races of the season after breaking his right leg and left foot during a wreck in the season-opening Xfinity Series race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
NASCAR granted Busch a waiver that allowed him to be eligible for the Chase despite missing those 11 races. He would, however, still have to satisfy the other requirements of winning at least one race and finishing inside the top 30 in the points standings.
Busch returned for May’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he finished 11th. After three more nondescript starts at Dover, Pocono and Michigan, Busch’s season took a turn.
It started with a victory at Sonoma. After finishing 17th at Daytona’s July race, Busch ran off three consecutive victories at Kentucky, New Hampshire and Indianapolis.
Three weeks after his victory at Indy – and in just his 12th race back – Busch qualified for the Chase when cracked the top 30 after finishing 11th at Michigan.
In Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race, Larson took out a season of frustration on the field on Saturday in the finale, tracking down Austin Dillon in the closing laps to win the Ford EcoBoost 300 by slightly less than a second.
Despite Larson’s dominance in leading 118 of 200 laps, Chris Buescher ran a clean race, finishing 11th to clinch his first Xfinity Series title. Buescher came into the race needing to finish 13th or better to guarantee himself the championship.
After winning a pair of Xfinity Series races last season, Larson, 23, had visions of qualifying for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup this year. Those hopes failed to materialize.
But Larson’s car out of the Harry Scott Jr. shop was so strong that by Lap 97 only three other cars were chasing him on the lead lap. Larson had opened a 6.7-second lead over early race leader Kyle Busch (who led 62 of the first 79 laps from the pole) when the race’s third caution flag waved on Lap 117.
Busch’s threat fizzled when he was penalized for having a loose tire in the pits, then crashed after contact with NASCAR Drive for Diversity alum Darrell Wallace Jr. on Lap 182. On the final restart, however, Larson slipped to fourth and had to recover with a late race charge to catch Dillon.
Both Larson and Dillon, seeking the speed of the outside line at Homestead-Miami Speedway, brushed the wall in the final laps.
NOTES: Richard Petty presented Jeff Gordon with a retirement gift of 93 dollar bills, one for each of Gordon’s wins, to go with the money clips he gifted all drivers upon his own retirement in 1992. Petty’s final race was Gordon’s first. … The Ford EcoBoost 400 was the final race for the two-car Michael Waltrip Racing team. … Matt Kenseth returned at Homestead-Miami Speedway after a two-race suspension. … Kevin Harvick won the 2014 Ford EcoBoost 400.