FORT WORTH, Texas
The timing was perfect for Kevin Harvick’s first NASCAR Cup Series victory at Texas. So was his winning pass.
Harvick went around the outside of Martin Truex Jr. for the lead with 10 laps to go, then stayed in front the rest of the way Sunday to earn his championship shot in NASCAR’s season finale.
Truex led 107 of 334 laps and was still up front until his bobble on the backstretch that allowed Harvick to take the lead. But Truex, with a significant points lead and wins in three of the eight playoff races, also locked into one of the four spots to race for the championship at Homestead in two weeks.
Kyle Busch had already clinched a championship spot with his win at Martinsville a week ago to start the third round of the playoffs. That leaves only one spot up for grabs among the five remaining playoff contenders next week at Phoenix.
After doing a long burnout along the frontstretch in the No. 4 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing, Harvick went to Victory Lane, where the Texas celebration was missing the traditional firing of six-shooters by the winner.
TMS officials bypassed the use of the pistols after a man armed with an assault rifle opened fire earlier Sunday inside a church in the small community of Sutherland Springs, about 300 miles south of the track near San Antonio. The man killed 26 people and wounded about 20 in what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said was the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history.
Denny Hamlin, another of the playoff contenders, finished third, while Brad Keselowski was fifth and Ryan Blaney sixth. Chase Elliott finished eighth, and his teammate Jimmie Johnson dealt with a loose car all day and finished 27th.
Keselowski dropped from third to fourth in points, 57 behind Truex. Hamlin is fifth in the standings, followed by Ryan Blaney, Elliott and seventh-time Cup champion Johnson.
Elliott knows that feeling, having been in the lead and two laps shy of the checkered flag at Martinsville before getting wrecked by Hamlin. Instead of the possible win then that would have clinched a championship spot.
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