Before the race in Dover ever started, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton sent out a reminder during the Sprint Cup Series drivers' meeting Sunday morning at Dover International Speedway.

During the said meeting, Pemberton reminded the 43 drivers to keep the competition "fair and square."

He said "I know I don't have to remind you any of this, but I'm going to anyways. Everybody out there today, you're going to be racing for your best finish, your first win, a chance to move to the Contender Round and go on and make your season better than it's been so far. I just ask you, let it play out fair and square on the track. You're professionals, you're the best in the world and give our fans the best racing that they deserve. Good luck to each and every one of you."

On the other hand, Jeff Gordon took home his fifth Dover win. This is his first since 2001. Gordon is the third driver to win in the first three Chase races. The first was won by Brad Keselowski, who finished second to Gordon while the other one was won by Joey Logano. The race at Dover was the final race in the first round of the Chase.

According to Gordon "I don't know what happened to Kevin Harvick, that was unfortunate for him. He was the class of the field. We tuned it to try to compete with him. When I saw him go out I knew we could compete with [Keselowski]. [Keselowski] was really good on short runs but we could run him down. Of course he made us work for it there at the end because he was so good on the short runs."

What was disappointing during the race was Harvick's flat tire. The problem, which happened right after a set of green flag pit stops, was the last caution flag of the day.

"It knocked the inner valve stem off the left front," Harvick said. "A lugnut got in-between the wheel and the brake rotor and knocked the valve stem out. Crazy. Handing out early Christmas presents for people; winning races that we should be winning."