Kenseth Wins Nationwide Finale; Elliott and Penske Celebrate Championships

In a thrilling green-white-checkered finish, Matt Kenseth, behind the wheel of the No. 20 GameStop/Rock Candy Toyota, held both Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson at bay to win the 20th annual Ford EcoBoost 300.

This was Kenseth’s first win of the 2014 Nationwide Series season and his second victory in 13 races at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Well, we kept getting those restarts at the end of the race, and the first couple got away okay,” Kenseth said. “I felt good about it.”

“We had a really good car tonight, especially on a short- to mid-range run, and that kind of fell into our hands except for the last two or three cautions we didn’t need, but it kind of worked out where we got in the front and had the speed on the front side of the run where we needed it.”

”It’s been a long time since I’ve won a race in anything.”

Following closely behind race winner Kenseth, with what has become known as the ‘Kyle and Kyle show’, Busch and Larson finished second and third respectively. This was Busch’s seventh top-10 finish in eight races and Larson’s seventh top-10 finish in just two races at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Yeah, we had a strong car,” Kyle Busch said. “Somewhere in the middle part of the race we started falling behind a little farther than I wanted to, just ill handling, being loose, tight, loose, and everything going on. But Adam made some great race calls and some good adjustments to get our car handling a little bit better, to get ourselves farther up toward the front. The 20 was kind of off there early on in the race, but there at the end he really came on strong and the 42 was really good.”

“So it was kind of a race amongst us three, I thought, and that’s kind of what it came down to there at the end,” Busch continued. “All in all, can’t be prouder of my team, Adam Stevens and Curtis and everyone that works so hard on the Monster Energy 54 at Joe Gibbs Racing, all the guys at the shop.”

“We did our part and we had some great races, and we did have a successful year, so nothing to hang our hats about, but there’s one other guy or team out there that was a little bit better than us.”

“Yeah, we were able to lead a lot of laps today, a lot more than I’ve probably ever led in my career,” Kyle Larson said. “That was fun. I had good restarts up there until the last 50 laps or so, and then I finally got a good one underneath Matt, was able to get to the lead, and was about 15 feet short of the win.”

“Almost had second, but Kyle was able to squeeze around me,” Larson continued. “I probably could have shut the door on him, but we weren’t going to win, so there was no point in maybe tearing up two cars. Disappointed, super disappointed. Really close to a win today.”

The Homestead finale race also officially crowned Chase Elliott as the Nationwide Series champion, an honor he had clinched last weekend. In spite of finishing 17th in the last race of the season, Elliott still made history as the youngest champ in NASCAR history.

“I know it was ugly,” Elliott said. “We didn’t have a very good run, but we’ll take it.”

The title was not just special for Chase Elliott and his family, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott and wife Cindy, but was also the first ever for the team owned by Dale Earnhardt, Jr., his sister Kelly and Rick Hendrick.

Roger Penske also clinched a championship, that of the Nationwide owner’s title. He did so with six wins and not just with one, but five different drivers, in the No. 22 Hertz Ford Mustang.

“It was a great day,” Penske said. “I thought that race would never get over. I think we had a green-white-checker and all we had to do was finish 25th, but you never know with all the action up front.”

“Brad (KeselowskI) ran a great race and when you think about five different drivers it’s really a credit to Jeremy Bullins and the job he’s done in preparing the car for different drivers and with six wins.”

“So, to me, this was a team effort at Team Penske,” Penske continued. “Everyone did so much to make this happen and obviously it didn’t come down until the last lap there that we knew we had it.”

With the final race in the books, NASCAR also bid a fond adieu to Nationwide, who has ended their title sponsorship, turning the reigns over to Xfinity.

“We have truly enjoyed our time as the series sponsor and are grateful for the relationships we’ve made with the drivers, teams, owners, and fans,” Jim McCoy, director of sports marketing for Nationwide Insurance, said.

The full race and points results are as follows:

2014 NNS Ford EcoBoost 300 Race Results

# = Rookie, Fin = Finish, Str = Start, Pts = Total Points, BPs = Lap Leader Bns Pts, TLd = Times Led, LLd = Laps Led. (i) Ineligible for driver points in this series

2014 NASCAR Nationwide Series Unofficial Point Standings Final

BPts – Bonus Points, -Ldr/-Nxt = Points behind Leader/Next higher, PPos = Previous Position, G/L = Points standing gain/loss, (i) Ineligible for driver points in this series

Source: Timing and Scoring provided by NASCAR Media/NASCAR Statistics