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Phoenix Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix International Raceway

Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest:

• Kevin Harvick raced the No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet SS to Victory Lane at Phoenix International Raceway and earned his Stewart-Haas Racing team a spot in the Championship 4 that will compete for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) championship next weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
• Harvick started the race from the third position and took over the lead for the first time at lap 44. He went on to dominate the Quicken Loans 500 by leading a total of 264 of the event’s 312 laps.
• The caution flag was displayed on 12 occasions, the last of which was lap 297. The field took the green flag for the final time with 12 laps to go. Harvick maintained the lead on the restart and held the point position until he took the checkered flag with a 1.636-second margin of victory to earn his 27th NSCS win.
• Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin completed the top-five positions.
• Sunday’s win secured Harvick a spot in the final round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. He and the No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet team travel to Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend to compete against Hamlin, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano for the championship. All four will enter the season finale tied in the standings and the highest-finishing driver will take home the title. 

Harvick on his finish at Phoenix International Raceway:

“Wow, I guess that is what it feels like to hit a walk off in extra innings there. I just want to thank Sprint, all the fans, Budweiser, Jimmy John’s, Outback, Chevrolet, Hunt Brothers, ditech a new sponsor on board, just everybody who helps us, Mobil 1, everybody at Stewart-Haas. Winning both races here has just been bad to the bone. Everybody on our Budweiser team has done a great job and here we come Homestead.”

You had the dominant care throughout the course of the day, but how were the nerves in the final laps of the race? “I could tell that we were probably going to have to win because everybody was running up in the front of the pack that we were racing against. That was our goal coming in here and that’s really the goal every time you come to Phoenix. This place has just been phenomenal for me personally and for this team this year. To do that in front of all your almost-hometown fans and all these people who have been routing for me since the mid-‘90’s is pretty unbelievable. Man, I think this says a lot about our team. I think we have been through a lot this year. They put our backs against the wall; we put it in Victory Lane and get to go on.”

Where do you rank this win in your career? “Well, I think you have to stack it up there in the top five for sure. Mostly for the fact that our backs were against the wall and there was really only one way in and that was to win the race. And for us we have been through a lot of moments this year whether they are good or bad. I think they have all been character-building moments to lead up to this point and we can’t take any more momentum going to Homestead than we have going right here. I am really excited for all these guys.”

The following is the finishing position of the other SHR teams in Sunday's race:

• Kurt Busch and the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet team finished seventh.
• Tony Stewart and the No. 14 Mobil 1/Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet team finished 20th.
• Danica Patrick and the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet team finished 22nd. 

Coming Up:

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams travel to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the season finale event: the Ford EcoBoost 400. On Sunday, ESPN will have live race coverage at 3 p.m. ET while MRN Radio affiliates and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast.

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