AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Matt Kenseths misfortune gave Joey Logano a chance to race for the championship.In an improbable turn of events, Kenseth came within two laps of a spot in next weeks title-deciding finale but instead was eliminated from NASCARs playoffs. Logano was gifted a victory Sunday that put him in the final four after a tense double-overtime event at Phoenix International Raceway.Kenseth had the win in hand until a late caution sent the race to extra laps. Although he cleared traffic on the restart, his teammate Kyle Busch had contact with Alex Bowman that altered Bowmans racing line.Kenseths spotter told the driver he was clear, but he actually cut down on Bowman and the contact caused him to crash.Logano saw the sequence unfolding, let off the gas early and slid into the lead after the accident. He then held off Busch in the second overtime for the win that qualified him for next weeks championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Before Kenseths accident, Logano was in danger of elimination.Im like, Oh, shoot, were out, and it was going to be so close there at the end to try to get ourselves through, and next thing you know the caution comes out and the whole game changes, Logano said. We find ourselves as the leader, and we win the race. Thats NASCAR racing at its finest.Logano won the race -- the second time in this Chase that he used a victory in an elimination race to advance -- and will compete for his first Sprint Cup title next Sunday. He will try to give Roger Penske a season sweep during the teams 50th anniversary season. Simon Pagenaud won the IndyCar title in September.Ive never felt this good about a win before, Logano said. There was so much on the line, and everyone brings their A-game when it comes to winning championships and this team did it.I feel like I just won the Daytona 500 again.Busch finished second and earned a chance to defend last years title. He will meet Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson, who is seeking a record-tying seventh championship, in Homestead.JGR, which was trying to get all four of its Toyotas into the final, wound up with only two, and Busch wasnt feeling celebratory. He said he believed his contact with Bowman triggered the accident that wrecked Kenseths season.Its really unfortunate and devastating to have the race come down like that, Busch said. Thats so frustrating and aggravating, and I feel horrible.Eliminated from the playoffs Sunday were Kevin Harvick, an eight-time winner at Phoenix who had raced in the last two finales, and his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kurt Busch. Gibbs drivers Kenseth and Denny Hamlin were also knocked out of the field.Disappointing would be the way to put it lightly, Kenseth said. Finish that race five minutes before that, looked like we had a chance to go race for a championship. It was a big swing in 10 or 15 minutes.Hamlin finished seventh after a bizarre decision not to pit with the rest of the field for track position. Although it gave him a brief lead, he was no match for drivers with fresh tires.I knew it was going to be an uphill climb, Hamlin said.PIT ROAD PENALTIES: NASCAR picked Sunday to enforce a rule against passing the pace car when a driver dips onto pit road for a stop. Martin Truex Jr.?and Johnson were both penalized for the infraction, and the punishment was holding the car for a lap on pit road.Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus were incredulous.I dont understand that in the least little bit, Johnson said on his radio. This is absolutely ridiculous, NASCAR. I have no clue what I did wrong.Johnson said he will ask for clarification this week.In 15 years, that has never been a concern, and I was always told that the last thing NASCAR wanted to do would be to penalize the leader, Johnson said. I am still baffled, and I dont know if I will stop being baffled.BOWMAN OUT FRONT: Bowman badly wants a job for next year, and his continued strong pace as the replacement driver for Dale Earnhardt Jr.?is giving him a solid case to present to prospective employers.Bowman had led just nine laps in his first 79 career Sprint Cup races. Six of those laps were earlier this year driving Earnhardts Chevrolet. A pole-winning run for Sundays race helped Bowman lead a race-high 194 laps, and he was attempting to win the race before the late accident. He faded to sixth and felt bad about his incident with Kenseth.I hate it for Matt. I would have raced the hell out of him for the win but definitely dont want to do that, Bowman said. Hate that, and it ruined our day too. So its unfortunate.UP NEXT: The season finale at Homestead, where the championship will be decided. Harvick won the race in 2014 to win his championship, and Kyle Busch won last year to claim the title. Air Force 1 Alte Gore-Tex . Schenn scored the game-winning goal and added two assists to lead the Philadelphia Flyers to a 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Tuesday. Air Force 1 Alte Victorious Minotaur . Pedro scored from a pass by Lionel Messi in the 33rd minute and added two more goals in the 47th and 72nd after Valdes saved his second penalty in four days following his stop in Wednesdays 4-0 over Ajax in the Champions League. http://www.airforce1outletitalia.it/scontate-air-force-1-alte-bianche.html . Kyle Denbrook, a soccer player from Saint Marys University, took the CIS male athlete of the week honour. Stanley, a fourth-year business administration student from Charlottetown, scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Dalhousie on Friday and tallied again in a 1-0 win over Saint Marys on Sunday. Air Force 1 Italia . Once again Jordan Cieciwa (@FitCityJordan) and I (@LynchOnSports) go head to head in our picks. Last weekend at UFC Fight Night 32 my #TeamLynch got the best of #TeamJC by a score of 9-6. Let us know which side youre on for UFC 167 use the hashtag #TeamLynch or #TeamJC on Twitter. Air Force 1 Sp . The players spoke Jan. 13 during a Major League Baseball Players Association conference call after Rodriguez sued the union and Major League Baseball to overturn an arbitrators decision suspending him for the 2014 season and post-season. Phil Mickelson kept hearing the wrong tone of cheers coming from the 18th green, one after another, until he realized the singles match he was on the verge of winning would not prevent Europe from capturing the Ryder Cup.This was 1995 at Oak Hill, where he went 3-0 in his debut at the most fervent, flag-waving, fanatical three days of golf.Mickelson never could have imagined what would follow.That was the start of Europe winning eight out of 10 times, a dominance so pronounced that the mighty Americans were reduced over the years to soul searching, finger pointing and ultimately creating a Ryder Cup Task Force to figure out why they usually have the best players but rarely win.Maybe this time will be different. They seem to think that every two years.I think we have a completely different attitude and culture this time around, U.S. captain Davis Love III said.Even though the Americans have won only twice in the last 23 years, they will be seen as favorites again when the 41st Ryder Cup starts Sept. 30 at Hazeltine National in Chaska, Minnesota.The 11 players on the U.S. team -- one more captains pick will be announced Sunday night -- are among the top 30 in the world, including U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and PGA champion Jimmy Walker. They are playing on home soil and before the most raucous atmosphere in golf.Love said on SiriusXM a week before the matches that this is the best golf team maybe ever assembled.Europe, led by Darren Clarke, has a pair of major champions in Danny Willett (Masters) and Henrik Stenson (British Open). Willett is a Ryder Cup rookie. Stenson has been taking it easy because of a nagging knee injury. Europe has five other rookies who will be experiencing this high-charged atmosphere before an American crowd.The pressure, however, falls to the Americans.Europeans quietly mocked the U.S. team for creating its task force, which included Mickelson and Tiger Woods, Love and former Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman, all of them part of a losing culture in these matches.The task force brought Love back as captain for the second time -- he was in charge in 2012 when the Americans built a 10-6 lead going into Sunday singles and wound up watching another European celebration at Medinah. It extended the deadlines for making the four captains picks, saving the last one until after the Tour Championship to make sure the Americans had the best players possible.And it built a model geared toward continuity so that assistant captains could only be past captains or players considered to be future captains. Beyond that, it shifted decisions entirely away from tthe PGA of America so the players would be more involved.ddddddddddddLook, we still have to play great golf to win, Mickelson said. And were still playing an incredibly talented team that has great players who shoot low scores. And were going to have a tough task. But the difference is were being put in a position to succeed because were going in with a proper game plan and every opportunity to play our best golf, as opposed to creating challenges though the week to overcome.Mickelson was largely responsible for this.Europe had little resistance in winning two years ago at Gleneagles in Scotland, and the American team appeared to be more dysfunctional than usual. The PGA of America selected Tom Watson as the captain, even though he was 69 and had not been to the Ryder Cup since he was the winning captain in 1993 (the year Spieth was born).Watson sat out Mickelson and Keegan Bradley all day Saturday.During the closing U.S. press conference, with Watson sitting at the same table, Mickelson questioned why the Americans got away from a winning formula -- in 2008 with Paul Azinger at the helm -- and that Watson didnt listen to have any player input.It was a bold move by Lefty, who put his image at risk with his public and blunt assessment of Watson.Nearly two years later, two questions remain: Was it worth it? Will it work?For all the talk about playing as a team, the nuances of foursomes (alternate shot) and making the right pairings, the Ryder Cup can be decided by the slimmest of margins. Europe won in 2012 on the strength of Justin Rose making a 45-foot putt that turned around his match with Mickelson. It won in 2010 mainly because Rory McIlroy escaped with a half-point against Stewart Cink. The 2002 Ryder Cup came down to Paul McGinley saving par on the final hole with an 8-foot putt (and Phillip Price, the No. 119 player in the world, beating Mickelson).And now Europe is try to win for the fourth straight time, which would be its longest streak.The United States still has a 25-13-2 record in the matches that date to 1927. The record, however, is misleading.Britain was reeling for a decade after World War II, and it took another decade for professional golf to return to a high standard. The Americans went 10-1 in the Ryder Cup during that span. And it was another decade before continental Europe was allowed to play.Dating to the modern era of the Ryder Cup in 1979, Europe leads the series, 10-7-1.And all that time, Europe never had to create a task force. ' ' '