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Kevin Harvick dominated Sunday at the Texas Motor Speedway AAA Texas 500 circuit.
He was not about to give it up after a green-white-checkered finish with a chance to clinch a spot in the championship.
Harvick overtook Ryan Blaney in overtime and secured his place in the championship by defending his title in the race.
Harvick led 177 laps one day when the two other Big Three members struggled. Martin Truex Jr. started in the back and finished ninth and Kyle Busch finished 17th, one day each of the three drivers was looking for a place in the championship.
Harvick and Joey Logano will make up half of the world championship in two weeks in Florida, while the other two spots will be determined next weekend in Arizona. This will be the fourth time in the last five years that the 2014 series champion will go to Florida with a shot at the title.
Harvick left no doubt about the fact that he was the car to beat on Sunday. Harvick, who took the start in third place, won the first stage and then a win in the second stage. Blaney was the only challenger he actually had and that's only during reboots.
After picking up inside twice at the end of the race, Harvick climbed to the top of the time and got his eighth win of the season.
"You never want to lose that kind of day," said Harvick, who finished in the top three of six out of ten races at TMS. "Obviously, Blaney has had a good restart and we do not have the advantage anymore. We will take over and see what happens and obviously it worked a little.
"For some reason, we are running well on the old circuit. [at TMS] and the new circuit. Since they repainted the place, it's off. We could have won every race here. We come to the things we do with our cars. Today, it was one of those days when the speed was good and everyone worked very well. It's a good time of the year.
Harvick started indoors at the 303 and 311 revs. He cleared Blaney in the first reboot, but he lost ahead of the second and had to follow Blaney to pick him up. This put him in a position to line up as he wanted in the last round after an accident by Joey Gase that set off the eighth caution of the race.
Harvick knew that Blaney should be perfect at the rebound to beat him, and once Blaney's tires broke the deck, Harvick earned his second career victory at TMS.
Polesitter Blaney knew that he was in trouble when Harvick started inside.
"I thought that he would not do this gesture three times," said Blaney. "We almost caught him on the first restart, then on the second. I kind of thought that it would take the top. The 42 [Kyle Larson] It pushed me a lot, but I did not get enough of a lead on Turn 4 1.
"If he had come in from the back right, I would have been ok, but we went side by side and if I went off as fast as him, I would be gone and we would both have demolished . It just did not happen.
That's what happened to Harvick, who will not change his plans for next weekend's race in Phoenix, when he was already in the league after his 45th career win.
"That's how you control your destiny the most, it's to go into Victory Lane," said Harvick. "It's guaranteed if you arrive at Victory Lane and you're still there. [the playoffs]. We put ourselves in scenarios where we had our back to the wall and we had to play at a high level. It's fun to see a whole day. "
Harvick was one of the few playoff contenders to have managed to organize his day. Logano finished third a week after securing a playoff spot. Chase Elliott (sixth), Kurt Busch (seventh), Aric Almirola (eighth) and Truex also finished in the top 10.
Of these, only Logano played a determining role since he led 54 laps. No other Chase pilot drove Sunday.
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