2014 Sprint Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick did what was needed to keep his 2015 title hopes alive on Sunday, win at Dover International Speedway. Harvick, whose Number-4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet was dominant throughout the day, darted away from the field on the final restart to notch his third victory of the season. It lands Harvick in the Contender Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, which is made up of the twelve survivors from the original Chase Grid that opened the post-season two weeks ago at Chicagoland Speedway.

Harvick entered the Chase as the Number-5 seed but a pair of sub-far finishes in the first two races of the post-season left him among the bottom four in the standings and facing elimination entering Sunday’s race. He led all but forty-five of the four hundred laps, beating runner-up Kyle Busch to the finish by two-point-six seconds. With Harvick leading comfortably in the closing laps, the only drama that remained was a duel between Dale Earnhardt Junior and Jamie McMurray for the twelfth – and final – spot in the Contender Round.

Earnhardt finished third, one position ahead of McMurray. They wound up with the same number of points, but Earnhardt gets the berth in the next round after winning the tie-breaker – which is their best finishing position in the opening round of the Chase. That came down to Sunday’s race, with “Junior” edging McMurray by that one position … Six-time champion Jimmie Johnson is among the four drivers eliminated from title contention. He finished forty-first on Sunday, sidelined by a broken rear axle seal.