Kyle Busch wins at Phoenix, will race Logano, Truex Jr. and Harvick for the NASCAR title

Kyle Busch had clinched a spot via points in the title race at Homestead-Miami Speedway before the checkered flag but wanted to go ahead and win anyway.

Busch drove away from the field on the crazy race’s final restart to win his eighth race of the season. He’ll race Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick for the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series championship on Nov. 18.

Busch and Harvick are now tied for the series lead in wins in 2018. Though Busch can claim to have an advantage because two of Harvick’s wins have been followed by points penalties. Harvick won last week at Texas but lost the win for playoff purposes because his car had an illegal spoiler. That led to some drama at Phoenix.

Harvick started from the pole and dominated the first stage of the race. But he had a flat tire 73 laps into the race and was forced to pit. The pit stop made him lose a lap and he spent the entirety of the second stage making up that track position he lost.

Harvick ended up finishing fifth. He was racing Kurt Busch for the final spot in the final four but Busch had to retire because of crash damage. He collided with Denny Hamlin as the two raced for the lead on a restart with fewer than 50 laps to go.

The crash also included Chase Elliott and ruined Elliott’s hopes at a title. With Clint Bowyer crashing out of the race earlier, Aric Almirola was left as the only challenger to the four finalists in the final laps of the race.

An Almirola win could have helped Busch

Almirola was running second on the race’s final restart but couldn’t challenge Busch for the win. Had Almirola won he would have knocked Harvick out of the final four.

He didn’t. As Almirola started alongside Busch on the race’s final restart, Busch faced an interesting choice since he was already locked into the playoffs via points. He could go and win the race or let Almirola win the race and play defense on Harvick and Keselowski on fresher tires.

An Almirola win would have knocked Busch’s toughest competitor out of the final four. For as much as Busch wanted to win Sunday’s race, it’s fair to wonder if his title hopes would have been strengthened with Almirola taking the checkered flag. Beating Almirola would presumably be a lot easier than beating Harvick. If Harvick wins at Homestead and Busch finishes second, will he second-guess not letting Almirola win?

“It did enter my mind,” Busch said on NBCSN’s post-race show of the possibility of letting Almirola win.

But you can’t blame Busch for wanting to win the race either.

FULL RESULTS

1. Kyle Busch
2. Brad Keselowski
3. Kyle Larson
4. Aric Almirola
5. Kevin Harvick
6. Jamie McMurray
7. Mat Kenseth
8. Austin Dillon
9. Wiliam Byron
10. Bubba Wallace
11. Ryan Newman
12. AJ Allmendinger
13. Denny Hamlin
14. Martin Truex Jr.
15. Jimmie Johnson
16. Michael McDowell
17. Erik Jones
18. Chris Buescher
19. Ty Dillon
20. David Ragan
21. Matt DiBenedetto
22. Regan Smith
23. Chase Elliott
24. Ross Chastain
25. Cole Whitt
26. Landon Cassill
27. DJ Kennington
28. Cody Ware
29. Paul Menard
30. Alex Bowman
31. Tanner Berryhill
32. Kurt Busch
33. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
34. Ryan Blaney
35. Clint Bowyer
36. Daniel Suarez
37. Joey Logano
38. JJ Yeley
39. Timmy Hill

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter

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