Joey Logano scored the win in all three NASCAR Contender Round races in the Chase with his win at Talladega in the CampingWorld.com 500. Four contenders were eliminated while one advances under a questionable finish.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. needed to win the CampingWorld.com 500 to advance to the next round in NASCAR’s playoffs. He did everything he could to achieve that goal. He moved to the front of the pack early in the scheduled 188 lap race. He made his way to the front of the pack six times as he overcame pit road mistakes and break issues getting on to pit road to lead a race high 61 laps at Talladega.

The race was under the green flag mainly with only a single caution period being issued until near the end of the race. With laps running out and necessity motivating drivers to get more aggressive the end of the race became quite wild.

The second caution was issued when fluid was put down on the track from a car blowing its engine on lap 185. The clean-up of that fluid took the field past the scheduled laps and put it into a “green-white-checkered” scenario for the finish. The field was lined up to restart, but an accident before the lead cars of Joey Logano and Dale Jr. reached the start finish line made NASCAR decide that the re-start was waived off and the race did not get back under green flag status.

Again the cars were lined up for the re-start with Joey Logano as the leader of the race and Dale Jr. to his inside in the second place position. When the green flag waived the two cars made it past the start finish line before the cars behind them began wrecking again causing the yellow flag to waive and end the race. NASCAR made the rule change that only a single attempt would be made at a green-white-checkered finish instead of three attempts.

That yellow flag gave Joey Logano his third win in the three Contender Round races by the length of the splitter on the front of his car. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was left with a second place finish. Jeff Gordon got the third place finish with Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards completing the top five in fourth and fifth places respectively. See the complete race results for the CampingWorld.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway here.

The questionable part of the finish of the race regarding Kevin Harvick involved his car engine. Kevin informed his pit crew that his engine was blowing up and he had no power to accelerate for the re-start. In the first re-start he pulled up to the high side of the track to not cause a wreck when the green flag waived. However, on the second re-start at the end of the race he held his line and was the catalyst for the ensuing crash the caused the race to end under caution. The questionable part of those actions is that by not losing a lot of spots and points with the race under the green flag Kevin was able to advance to the next round of the Chase Grid.

Because he was not able to race Joey for the win over the green-white-checkered finish and was relegated to a second place finish, Dale Earnhardt Jr. did not earn enough points in the NASCAR Sprint Cup point standings to advance in the Chase. Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth are all also eliminated from the Chase Grid. See the Chase Grid as it stands with the eight remaining championship contenders following the Talladega race here.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Eliminator Round of the Chase begins this week with the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway this Sunday afternoon, November 1st.

By: Buck Stevens