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Brad Keselowski is out of the running for the Sprint Cup championship

NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski talks to crew chief Paul Wolfe after failing to advance to the final round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff on Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway.
(Rainier Ehrhardt / Getty Images)
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After a tumultuous week, Brad Keselowski came up just short in his bid to win a second NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.

Keselowski finished fourth in his No. 2 Ford on Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, not good enough to be one of the four finalists who will decide the Cup title next weekend.

“I’m not disappointed with the effort, just disappointed it didn’t work out,” Keselowski said.

Keselowski was the target of Jeff Gordon’s anger the previous weekend in Texas after the drivers’ cars made late-race contact. The result was a brawl in pit road between Gordon, Keselowski and their crews.

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The incident led NASCAR to suspend four crew members and was the leading topic of media interviews with Keselowski and other Cup drivers all week.

“We were a third- to fifth-place car and we finished fourth,” Keselowski, a Team Penske driver who led the Cup series with six victories this season, said of Phoenix. “We put in solid efforts, solid runs and it just wasn’t enough today.”

Kurt Busch’s strong day

Despite being the subject of a police investigation, Kurt Busch put aside his personal problems and finished seventh after running even higher much of the day.

The Dover (Del.) Police Department said Friday it was investigating Busch for alleged domestic assault, and the alleged victim reportedly was Busch’s ex-girlfriend, Patricia Driscoll.

Busch’s lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said Busch “vehemently denies” the allegations, which Hardin called “a complete fabrication.”

Busch, the 2004 Cup champion, drives the No. 41 Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing and is a teammate of Kevin Harvick, who won Sunday’s race.

Harvick’s home turf

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Phoenix International Raceway is becoming Harvick’s house.

The Bakersfield native, who often raced at the track early in his career, has won the last three Cup races at the track and four of the last five. He holds the track record for Cup victories with six.

“This is one of the places that for me as a kid was our Daytona 500,” Harvick said. “This is a place that I love coming to race. So to come here and have this moment [of another win] is very cool.”

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