Still chasing championship berth, Harvick hits Phoenix just in time

Hard to wager against guy who dominates track

It’s basically now or never for Kevin Harvick’s championship dreams in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Cam-Am 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, the final race of the Round of 8.

Harvick is in seventh place, 18 points behind the transfer position. But he has an edge over everyone else just because he’s been dominating the one-mile flat track since he first stepped into a stock car.

Harvick has won a track-record eight times, including six of his past eight starts, at Phoenix. One of those was a similar situation in 2014 when he had to win to advance, which carried him to his first Sprint Cup title a week later.

He’s so good on this track that, coupled with his desperate situation, the Westgate sports book posted him as the 6-5 favorite, the lowest odds ever offered on a driver to win in Las Vegas history.

He will start from the sixth position, and while several other drivers practiced better than he did Saturday, his resume carries some serious 4. Matt Kenseth 5. Brad Keselowski 6. Chase Elliott 7. Kyle Larson 8. Alex Bowman 9. Martin Truex Jr. 10. Jimmie Johnson clout, as does the chassis he’s using this weekend.

Harvick is using the same car that won the past two March races at Phoenix and the September race at New Hampshire, a similar flat onemile layout to Phoenix. This chassis also has been second three times in the past two seasons. The car alone will give the team confidence.

BEST LONG SHOT Betting other drivers than Harvick at Phoenix has been a losing proposition, but it’s not a bad idea to invest a few dollars on pole sitter Alex Bowman at 100-1.

He’s never won a Cup race, but he’s substituting for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 and had the best 10-consecutive lap average during the final practice. The No. 88 won this race last season.

“We have to rebound — the whole perimeter has to rebound,” said Allen, who finished one rebound shy of his career best. “We know the big guys that we do have in the game, they’re going to be battling, boxing out the other bigs, so the perimeter, we need to crash in and rebound and clean up all the loose stuff.”

Amile Jefferson scored 15 points, Luke Kennard finished with 14 and Matt Jones had 11 points for the short-handed Blue Devils (2-0).

Once again playing without three injured freshman post players, they kept things largely in their guards’ hands and shot 53 percent to win their second game in less than 24 hours.

“I like my team a lot. We just have to keep getting better, and then once all these injuries are taken care of in some time, we can become a different team,” coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Right now, we have to be this team and not think about who we could be. Our complete focus has got to be how to win with this team.”

Now, with those two tuneup games out of the way, the focus squarely falls on one of the marquee matchups of the early season: a date with No. 3 Kansas on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.

Shaq Carr had 18 points to lead pesky Grand Canyon (0-1), which gave Duke more of a test than Marist did in a 94-49 rout a night earlier but came up empty in its second opener against a top-ranked team in three years.

The Blue Devils shortened their bench significantly, playing only seven players in the pre-garbage time portion of the game — and the seventh, freshman Javin DeLaurier, logged only 6 minutes in all.

They’re trying to keep things working without injured freshman big men Harry Giles (knee), Marques Bolden (lower leg) and Jayson Tatum (foot). Krzyzewski said he doesn’t anticipate having them against the Jayhawks and “we may not have them all week.