AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kyle Busch won for the eighth time this season to tie Kevin Harvick for the most Cup victories and possibly set up a head-to-head battle for the championship.

Busch’s victory at ISM Raceway outside of Phoenix was the final qualifying event for next week’s finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where it will be winner-take-all between Busch, Harvick, Martin Truex Jr. and Joey Logano.

Busch, Harvick and reigning series champion Truex advanced into the championship round as expected after dominating the series all season. Logano, the only remaining contender who hasn’t won a Cup series championship, earned the other spot.

Busch and Harvick have gone win-for-win all year, and Busch could have controlled Harvick’s fate late in the race when he was lined up against Harvick’s teammate, Aric Almirola, on a restart. An Almirola victory would have eliminated Harvick from the playoffs, which Busch acknowledged considering.

“I did think about it,” Busch said. “But I’m here to win the race. They always want it to play out naturally.”

Now Busch might just have the momentum to take the title.

“I’d like to think it gives us a lot (of momentum), but I don’t know, talk is cheap,” Busch 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. 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 was the favorite to win Sunday and started from the pole, but an early flat tire made the race more eventful than he expected.

He found himself racing late against Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola for the last spot in the final four, but Busch got into a crash and Almirola had to win the race to snatch the berth away from Harvick.

“We kept ourselves in position all day, and there at the end, it was just like everybody wrecking and all over the place,” Harvick said. “We just needed to stay out of trouble and try to find a safe spot there.”

Brad Keselowski and Kyle Larson, both already eliminated from the playoffs, finished second and third. Almirola was fourth and Harvick fifth.

Harvick thought he had earned a spot in the final four by winning a week ago at Texas, but NASCAR ruled that his car was illegal. He raced his crew chief and car chief, who were suspended for the rest of the season. But he’s a nine-time winner at Phoenix, was fastest in practice, started on the pole, and led the first 72 laps before his tire went flat.

That put Harvick back in 30th and one lap down, and he had to work his way back to the front. He was aided by a flurry of mistakes by the other championship contenders. Clint Bowyer had a flat tire that caused him to wreck, Kurt Busch was wrecked, and that accident collected Chase Elliott, who earlier had been penalized for speeding on pit road. Kurt Busch also was penalized early in the race for passing the pace car.

The intensity of the race picked up with a flurry of late cautions that began when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wrecked with 48 laps remaining. Stewart-Haas Racing used split strategy on the ensuing pit stop, as Kurt Busch stayed on the track to move into second while Harvick pitted for new tires and restarted sixth. NASCAR then stopped the race for the extensive cleanup.

Kurt Busch never got to find out if his strategy was the right one, as Denny Hamlin shoved Busch into the wall on the restart. As Busch’s car ricocheted back into traffic, he tagged Chase Elliott, ending Elliott’s bid to race his way into the finale.

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