Kyle Busch wins the race and the championship

With NASCAR’s championship on the line, Kyle Busch took control on a late restart, then went on to win the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The victory allowed Busch to win his first Cup championship.

Busch finished well ahead of his three remaining rivals in the Chase. Kevin Harvick was second, 1.553 seconds behind. Jeff Gordon, the sentimental favorite for the title in his final season, was sixth and Martin Truex Jr. 12th.

Brad Keselowski and two other non-Chase drivers – Joey Logano and Kyle Larson – finished third through fifth.

Busch missed the first 11 Cup races of the season after breaking his right leg and left foot during a wreck in the season-opening Xfinity Series race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. He was granted a waiver by NASCAR to qualify for the Chase if he could win a race and finish in the top 30 in the points standings.

Turning point

Busch, starting on the outside of the front row of a restart with seven laps left, got past Brad Keselowski and led the rest of the way. He was aware of Harvick, who was fourth on the restart and right behind him.

Chase update

How the NASCAR Chase drivers fared:

1. Kyle Busch (5,043 points): Won his first championship by winning the race. He did so after missing 11 races due to injuries suffered in Daytona in February.

“This is just so unbelievable, so amazing and means so much and probably will for a long, long time to come,” Busch said. “This is just a dream come true and my family, my wife, my son – to have him this year and to have everything we’ve gone through this year to be in this moment – I don’t know what else to say, but this is so special.”

2. Kevin Harvick (one behind): A second-place finish in the race meant a second-place finish in the championship. Harvick was unable to successfully defend his 2014 championship.

“We were definitely a little bit off tonight, and we just kept throwing stuff at it,” Harvick said. “We never really found anything that really helped the car that was like, ‘Oh, man, that's what we needed right there.’ ”

3. Jeff Gordon (five behind): Came up short in the final race of his career, finishing sixth. He led nine laps, but wasn’t able to contend at the end.

“I’ve learned a lot in life, and there’s no such thing as a perfect day and a perfect life,” Gordon said. “Just like there's no such thing as a perfect race car. They're really close and good and at times better than the rest, but it doesn't mean that they're ever perfect.”

4. Martin Truex Jr. (11 behind): Wasn’t a factor, finishing 12th. He led briefly late in the race, but dropped back after a pit stop.

“I’m obviously a little disappointed in the way we ran this weekend,” Truex said. “We just never could quite hit on anything to get the car to do the things we needed it to. Not from a lack of effort. The guys really put a lot of effort into bringing this car here and really throughout the weekend we tried a lot, and we worked really hard on it.”

Observations

▪ Busch is receiving some criticism for winning the championship after receiving NASCAR’s waiver. But doesn’t it make his title more impressive with him qualifying for the Chase -- using the same criteria that every other driver had -- in 11 fewer races?

▪  Busch and his brother Kurt, who won the championship in 2004, join Terry and Bobby Labonte as the only brothers to earn Cup titles.

▪  Pole-sitter Denny Hamlin fell out of contention early. He had a problem with a clamp that dropped oil on the track early in the race and had to go the garage for repairs. He came back into the race three laps down, but clawed his way back and finished 10th.

▪  NASCAR did a good job of getting the race started just 96 minutes after its scheduled green-flag time of 3:15 p.m. Rain (which was expected) arrived early in the afternoon, but when it stopped, NASCAR’s Air Titan drying equipment took over from there.

This story was originally published November 22, 2015 at 11:22 PM with the headline "Kyle Busch wins the race and the championship."