AVONDALE, Ariz. _ The dance card for the 2016 NASCAR Chase title is now complete.
Joey Logano and Kyle Busch will join Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards as the last men standing in a winner-take-all format at Homestead this coming Sunday. If none of the Chase finalists wins, then the driver with the highest finish will be anointed the 2016 Sprint Cup champion.
Logano advanced with a dramatic overtime victory in the Can-Am 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday afternoon, just in front of Busch, the defending champion.
"Man, this feels so good," Logano told reporters along pit road. "I never felt so good about a win before!"
A late caution came out when Michael McDowell spun out. It set up the dramatic overtime circumstances of a two-lap sprint. On the restart, Alex Bowman made contact with Matt Kenseth as he dropped to the inside, causing Kenseth to wreck and crush his chances of advancing.
There seemed to be communication issues between Kenseth and his spotter, contributing to the mishap.
That set up another sprint to the finish, with Logano prevailing without any added drama.
Bowman had the most dominant car of the day, leading 193 laps. It closed out a great weekend for Bowman, who won his first career pole with a speed of 140.521 mph in NASCAR's penultimate race. He began the race with 80 career starts without a victory.
Bowman, a native of Arizona, was also making his eighth start replacing Dale Earnhardt Jr. (concussion issues) for the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet team.
"Man, it's amazing," Bowman, 23, said after said qualifying. "We weren't really that strong in qualifying trim in practice [earlier on Friday]. I don't really know where that came from, but I just can't thank everybody at Hendrick Motorsports enough."
In one of the most controversial twist of events on race day, Denny Hamlin's team decided to keep his No. 11 Toyota out with 55 laps to go after a caution came out. Hamlin took the lead but didn't have fresh tires. Kenseth passed him right away. Then, after another caution, Hamlin fell behind even farther.
In another noteworthy twist, the race marked the first time that Kevin Harvick has been eliminated from a Chase round.
"We just came up short this year," Harvick said.
