By: Pete Pistone – MRN
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Kevin Harvick endured a race-record 15 caution flags and went on to win Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Harvick started from the pole and scored his 22nd career Cup Series win. With his six career poles, Harvick has now won half of those races including his last two.
The Richard Childress Racing driver led 138 laps in his third win of the season and has pulled within 25 points of the Chase lead.
It wasn’t easy for Harvick, who was caught behind the eight ball early when pitting as a caution flag flew for debris. While he worked he way back through the field with pit strategy, he also had to deal with the record number of caution flags that flew for a number of spins and multi-car crashes.
MRN“For me, it was like driving two different cars,” Harvick said. “We got that debris caution right as we pitted there early, we got back in traffic and the car was just really tight. Then, we got better as the cloud cover came over and we kind of found that middle line down there in (Turns) one and two.”
Harvick tipped his cap to crew chief Gil Martin and his team for helping him stay the course through the difficulties.
“They kept me calm,” said Harvick. “I was starting to get a little wound up because I knew we had a really fast car out front, but it was just a matter of getting there because track position was so important. It was a good day. (I’m) just happy as heck for everybody on this team.”
The combination of the track’s relatively new asphalt, the introduction of Goodyear’s multi-zone tread tire and very cold temperatures combined to make for a challenging day. Kurt Busch, who started from the rear of the field after crashing his primary car in practice, rallied to finish second.
“Wow, what an unbelievable drive,” said Busch. “Kansas Speedway has been a great track over the years and for us to finally knock off a small little check box, (with) a top five, is a small victory in my own mind. I don’t know how much it counts for anybody else, but this is the last track that I needed to get a top-five finish on and now, I have a top five at all the tracks. So a small little feather in the cap.”
Jeff Gordon, Joey Logano and Carl Edwards rounded out the top five. Jimmie Johnson, who had an engine malfunction on the white-flag lap, hung on to finish sixth.
“Lots of weird restarts, wacky restarts, a lot of chaos,” said Johnson. “Then, caution after caution for who knows what. Cautions kept coming out. We rebounded from all of that, passed a bunch of racecars then with two (laps) to go coming down the backstretch, it started shaking real bad and I thought it was over. I limped it around and got it to the finish line.”
Paul Menard, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Marcos Ambrose and Aric Almirola completed the first 10 finishers.
April Kansas race winner Matt Kenseth finished 11th and was able to maintain the lead in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, by three points over Johnson.
“It was a struggle all day,” Kenseth said. “I’ve been so incredibly spoiled this year, I haven’t had to drive a car like that in a long time. It was incredibly treacherous. I was so loose, about to crash pretty much at all times in the race. We drove back to 11th, which definitely isn’t what we wanted or need to contend for this thing. But it was a good day for as bad as we were.”
It was a difficult day for other Chase drivers including Kyle Busch, who also started from the rear after going to a back-up car. Busch was involved in a number of incidents including one that ended his day on Lap 199 – when he crashed hard into the third-turn wall. Busch finished 34th and fell from third in the standings to fifth, 35 points out of the lead.
Ryan Newman also exited after a crash when he got caught up with Justin Allgaier and suffered extensive damage to his Stewart-Haas Racing entry. The 15 cautions slowed the race for 71 laps. There were 24 lead changes among 12 drivers.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series now heads to Charlotte Motor Speedway for Saturday night’s Bank of America 500.
