In a battle with Mother Nature, the only winners late Sunday night was Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the four drivers who will race for the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway. After a rain delay of over six hours, Earnhardt took the lead on pit road thanks to a timely caution and won the Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix International Raceway when rain returned and NASCAR was forced to call the race early.
“We had an idea that the rain was in the area, but all the circumstances that played out at the end of the race are just kind of luck I think,” Earnhardt said after his 26th career win and this third of the season. “I want to give Greg (Ives, crew chief) a lot of credit and the guys. They gave us a good enough car to come here and qualify well. I think the reason why we won this race is because of the way we qualified to give ourselves a position to be up front all night.”
As he has been for the last four Phoenix races, Kevin Harvick was the class of the field for much of the early part of the race. Harvick took the lead during the races first caution on lap 41 after pole sitter Jimmie Johnson, who had led the first laps, was penalized for speeding on pit road. Harvick would go on to lead 143 of the 219 laps that were run before the rains came again and NASCAR called the race MORE>>>
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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