Kevin Harvick took home his fifth NASCAR Cup Series win of the season, holding off Brad Keselowski at the latter’s home track.
The Detroit Tigers weren’t at Comerica Park on Saturday afternoon, but a closer nonetheless took to a Michigan landmark’s final stages to steal the show and secure a win.
The FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway saw three restarts over its final 18 laps ended with Kevin Harvick capturing his fifth victory of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season. Harvick, the driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, also earned his fourth win at MIS and the 54th triumph of his Cup career tying him with Lee Petty for the ninth-most all-time.
Harvick was upfront for a majority of the event, leading 92 of 156 laps and winning each of the race’s three stages. He had his hands full as the race reached its latter portions.
Saturday’s race, the first of a weekend doubleheader at Michigan, was the first regular season event to use the choose cone rule, which allows racers to pick their lane on restarts. The format has been a staple in other sanctioned auto racing events and made its unofficial NASCAR debut at the All-Star Race exhibition at Bristol earlier this summer. With this rule, drivers can improve or sacrifice their spot on the leaderboard, though they get to get up to speed in the lane they prefer. The top lane at Michigan, treated with the PJ1 traction compound, was the preferred lane of Harvick and the rest of the leaders.
Chase Elliott used the rule to his advantage to take a late lead, but Harvick took the lead back after the yellow came out for Ryan Preece’s scrape with the wall. Two more incidents, including a multi-car pile-up involving Austin Dillon and Ryan Newman that sent the race to overtime, set up one final chance for the rest of the field. Harvick was able to hold off a furious challenge from Brad Keselowski, who was seeking his second straight win and swipe the victory by a .284-second margin.
Martin Truex Jr. went from eighth to third over the two-lap dash, while Ryan Blaney came home fourth. Kyle Busch got loose after a fierce battle for the lead with Harvick but recovered to finish fifth.
The second half of the Michigan doubleheader will come on Sunday afternoon in the form of the Consumers Energy 400 (4 p.m. ET, NBCSN).
Race Notes
Bubba Wallace (9th) earned his fourth top-ten finish of the season, setting a new career-high.
Aric Almirola (16th) saw his streak of consecutive top-ten finishes end at nine.
The starting lineup for Sunday’s race will be determined by inverting the top 20 finishers and the rest set by directly by final spot. By finishing 20th, Chris Buescher will start on the pole.
John Hunter Nemechek was involved in three on-track incidents, including a wreck that officially sent him to the garage at lap 131.
A brief red flag came out after Cole Custer wrecked at lap 150, lasting just under six minutes as fluid was cleared off the track.
For the first time in nearly three years, a rookie won in the NASCAR Cup Series, as Cole Custer’s last-lap pass scored an improbable victory.
Kentucky is known for hosting “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” via the Kentucky Derby, whose post time has been pushed to September. The NASCAR Cup Series was happy to partly fill the gap in the meantime at Kentucky Speedway.
The final two laps of the Quaker State 400 took just over a minute to complete, but they certainly retained the level of excitement and intensity the Thoroughbreds often provide on the first Saturday in May. An hour away from Churchill Downs, Cole Custer and his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford came out on top at the end of a two-lap shootout, the final portions of the 267-circuit event. The rookie Custer beat out the combined 84 Cup Series wins of Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, and Ryan Blaney to earn his first victory at NASCAR’s premier level.
Custer sat in the sixth position when the caution flag came out for Matt Kenseth’s spin with six laps to go. He got a good push on the outside from fellow first-win seeker Matt DiBenedetto on the outside lane to catapult past the lead trio of Harvick, Truex, and Blaney. Once Custer got into clean air at the front, he was able to hold Truex off by 0.271 seconds to earn his first win in his 20th Cup start.
Custer, 22, has finished in the top five in the final standings in each of the past three NASCAR Xfinity Series campaigns. His full-time Cup Series debut got off to a tough start with only one top-ten finish over his first 15 starts in 2020. But he built momentum with a fifth-place finish at last week’s event at Indianapolis before his historic afternoon at Kentucky. Sunday featured not only the first win for Custer, but also the first win for his crew chief Mike Shiplett. The two united for seven wins at the Xfinity level last season.
The win for Custer proved monumental in other ways on the national level as well. Custer’s win ensures him a spot in the NASCAR All-Star Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Wednesday night (7 p.m. ET, FS1). Had Sunday’s effort fallen short, Custer would’ve had to race his way into the exhibition by winning one of the three stages of the NASCAR All-Star Open. One more driver will reach the event through a fan vote. Provided he finishes in the top 30 in the points standings, Custer has also more or less clinched a spot in the Cup Series playoffs this fall. He is the first Rookie of the Year competitor to a win a Cup Series race since Chris Buescher won the rain-shortened Pocono event in August 2016 and the first to do so without the assistance of weather since Juan Pablo Montoya at Sonoma Raceway in 2007 (Trevor Bayne and Brad Keselowski won as part-time drivers in 2011 and 2013 respectively).
Truex, a two-time winner at Kentucky, managed to hold on to the runner-up spot despite late contact with Harvick, who finished third behind DiBenedetto. Defending race-winner Kurt Busch rounded out the top five.
Following the non-points race at Bristol, the NASCAR regular season resumes next Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway via the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN).
Race Notes
Custer currently sits in the 20th spot in the standings but leapfrogs ahead of 16th-place Austin Dillon for the final playoff spot. Dillon was involved in a late incident with Brennan Poole but recovered to finish 13th.
Jimmie Johnson returned to the track after missing the Indianapolis race due to a positive test for COVID-19. It ended his streak of 663 consecutive Cup Series starts, but two negative tests in a 24-hour span allowed him to return. Johnson was in third place for a restart with 19 laps to go, but contact with Brad Keselowski spun him out and relegated him to an 18th-place finish. He nonetheless holds the final playoff spots via points, 24 points in front of Dillon.
In addition to Custer, two other rookies finished in the top ten, including Christopher Bell (7th) and Tyler Reddick (10th).
Aric Almirola saw his streak of consecutive top-five postings end at five races. Almirola still managed a top-ten finish (8th) and won the first stage of the race as part of a streak where he led 128 consecutive laps.
Benefitting from a separate Kenseth spin, Keselowski (9th) used a late caution to his advantage to win stage two.
John Hunter Nemechek (accident), Timmy Hill (electrical), Ryan Preece (transmission) all failed to finish
A late incident involving Denny Hamlin allowed Kevin Harvick to emerge from Indianapolis with his fourth win of the NASCAR Cup Series season.
With the Colts, Pacers, and Fever on hiatus, Kevin Harvick was happy to provide Indianapolis with some late athletic heroics during the NASCAR Cup Series’ annual excursion to perhaps auto racing’s most hallowed ground.
Denny Hamlin led the race with eight laps to go, but when a lost tire slammed him into Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s wall, Harvick took advantage. Flanked by teammates from Stewart-Haas Racing, his No. 4 Ford held off fellow veteran and Cup Series champion Matt Kenseth over a two-lap shootout to win the Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400 Powered By Big Machine Records.
The win was Harvick’s fourth of the 2020 season and his third in the 400-mile event at the track known as The Brickyard. He joins Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson as the only NASCAR drivers to win at least three times at IMS, which has hosted the Cup Series annually since 1994.
Harvick, who started the day in 11th via random draw, took his first lead of the day at Lap 17 of 160 in the midst of the race’s competition caution. Crew chief Rodney Childers brought the No. 4 down pit road shortly before the yellow flag waved.
The gambit paid off in more ways than one. Not only did Harvick take the lead when his competitors needed service, but he also avoided a pile-up at the narrow entrance that ended the day of several drivers including Ryan Preece, Corey LaJoie, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Zach Price, a tire-changer on Ryan Blaney’s pit crew, got pinched between his No. 12 Ford and Brennan Poole’s No. 15 in the chaos. Price was transported to a local hospital, but seemed to be in good spirits otherwise. NBC cameras showed him smiling and displaying the thumbs up as he was loaded into the ambulance.
William Byron took the first 50-lap stage, but Harvick fought back to take the second. It appeared that Harvick and Hamlin would once again be the drivers to beat after swapping the top-two spots during the doubleheader at Pocono last weekend. Over the final 60-lap segment, it appeared that would be how things shaped out. Hamlin would set himself up to take the lead from Harvick after pitting one lap before the No. 4. Kenseth, on a different pit cycle, would hold the lead from lap 123 through 134, when Alex Bowman lost a tire and hit the wall hard to bring out the caution.
Hamlin took the lead when Kenseth needed service during the Bowman caution and beat Harvick out on the ensuing restart. He had distanced himself from Harvick and Kenseth, who worked his way up to third, and seemed to be coasting toward his fifth victory of the year.
But going into the first turn, Hamlin lost a tire and took a hard hit to the wall, ending his chances at the win and setting up a two-lap, winner-take-all finish. Hamlin was one of several drivers who saw their days hampered or ended entirely due to tire issues, joining Bowman, Ryan Newman, Erik Jones, and Justin Allgaier.
Harvick assumed the lead next to Kenseth. Behind them were Harvick’s SHR teammates Aric Almirola and Cole Custer. He got off to a strong restart, aided by a strong push from the rookie Custer’s No. 41 Ford. From there, he was able to get into clean air and deny Kenseth his first Indianapolis title.
Kenseth has now finished in the Brickyard’s runner-up spot on four occasions. His second-place posting was nonetheless his best finish since taking over the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet from the fired Kyle Larson. Almirola would continue a hot streak in third, his fifth consecutive top-five finish. Brad Keselowski snuck into fourth, while Custer hung on to post first career Cup Series top five.
The NASCAR Cup Series returns to action next Sunday afternoon for at Kentucky Speedway for the Quaker State 400 presented by Walmart (2:30 p.m. ET, FS1).
Race Notes
Sunday marked the first NASCAR Cup Series event without Jimmie Johnson since November 23, 2001, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Johnson, a seven-time Cup Series champion, was the first driver to test positive for COVID-19, though he has not experienced any symptoms. Allgaier is set to be the replacement driver until Johnson has two negative tests in a 24-hour span.
Sunday saw a major shakeup toward the bottom of the NASCAR playoff standings. Byron and Jones held the final two playoff seeds (15th and 16th respectively) entering the race, followed by 17th-place Austin Dillon. Each stayed out to earn valuable stage points at the end of the first segment (won by Byron). Dillon was able to slightly take advantage of Byron and Jones’ wrecks. Despite being relegated to an 18th-place finish after wrecking with Matt DiBenedetto on the final lap, Dillon currently holds the final playoff spot, ahead of Jones by six points. Johnson, currently in 15th, is 36 points ahead of Jones.
For the first time, IMS hosted NASCAR’s annual July 4th-weekend event. Daytona International Speedway’s 400-mile event had hosted the race from 1959 through last season. In another first, NASCAR also hosted shared a doubleheader with the IndyCar Series, which ran alongside the NASCAR Xfinity Series on the in-house road course on Saturday. Scott Dixon won the IndyCar event, while Chase Briscoe won his fifth Xfinity event of the season.
Michael McDowell finished seventh in the mid-budget No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford. It’s McDowell’s second top-ten finish at a track other than Daytona or Talladega over the last three races after posting only one over his first dozen seasons.
In addition to Custer, the top 15 finishers featured three other rookies, including Tyler Reddick (8th), Christopher Bell (12th), and John Hunter Nemechek (15th).
Bubba Wallace (9th) tied his career-best with his third top-ten finish. He currently sits in 19th place in the standings, 42 points behind Dillon for the final playoff spot.
Martin Truex Jr. (38th) drew the eighth starting spot but suffered engine trouble in the early stages. He was later involved in the pit road accident and retired his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota after 16 laps.
After a runner-up finish on Saturday, Denny Hamlin reversed his fortunes to win the second part of a NASCAR Cup Series weekend doubleheader.
It was auto racing deja vu all over again at Sunday’s Pocono 350. The second half of a NASCAR Cup Series weekend doubleheader, the first of its kind, featured the same top pair of finishers. Denny Hamlin, however, was glad to see the order reversed this time around.
Hamlin and his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team denied Kevin Harvick the opportunity of a weekend sweep, taking home the 350-mile event as dusk descended on Pocono Raceway. He would earn his series-best fourth win of 2020 and his sixth victory on the track known as “The Tricky Triangle”. Hamlin previously finished behind Harvick at a 325-mile event on Saturday afternoon at the Long Pond, Pennsylvania landmark.
Sunday’s win ties Hamlin with NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon for the most wins at the 2.5-mile track.
Pocono played host to Hamlin’s first win during his rookie season in 2006. Hamlin’s Sunday drive was his 41st Cup Series victory, breaking a tie with Gordon’s fellow Charlotte inductee Mark Martin.
Shrewd pit strategy allowed Hamlin to earn the fateful win. Sunday’s race was paused after six laps due to inclement weather, pushing the latter portions to the twilight hours. Due to the lack of lights at Pocono, drivers were forced to race both each other and the setting sun.
Hamlin took the lead from Harvick when the latter pitted to top off on fuel on lap 105 of 140. Rather than immediately follow Harvick, Hamlin and crew chief Chris Gabehart opted to run 15 extra laps to build a sizable advantage on the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Hamlin was able to get service and emerge ahead of Harvick when he pitted with 20 laps remaining. He ran only behind his JGR teammate Martin Truex Jr. for six laps before the latter brought his own Toyota to pit road. Hamlin was thus able to coast to a victory won by over a three-second margin.
Harvick continues to lead the Cup Series points by a 52-point margin over runner-up Ryan Blaney as the circuit enters the second half of the regular season. He and Hamlin (who sits in fifth, 75 points behind) have combined to win 7 of the 15 races the 2020 season has had to offer thus far.
Another Gibbs entrant, the No. 20 Toyota of Erik Jones, finished a season-best third, while Chase Elliott and Harvick’s Stewart-Haas teammate Aric Almirola rounded out the top five.
The NASCAR Cup Series returns to action next Sunday for a new Independence Day weekend tradition. For the first time, Indianapolis Motor Speedway finds itself in the coveted slot to host the Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard Powered by Florida Georgia Line (4 p.m. ET, NBC).
Race Notes
Kyle Busch, winner of three prior Pocono events, saw his day end on a crash toward the end of the second, 55-lap stage after he and Blaney made contact while trying to avoid the slower of Garrett Smithley. Busch was visibly displeased in an interview with Fox Sports’ Jamie Little, declaring “I know what happened but it doesn’t make any sense to talk about it. It will just come across in a bad way.” The defending series champion, Busch sits 11th in the current standings but has yet to earn a Cup victory this season.
Two drivers who impressed with strong runs on Saturday saw their Sunday end early in separate wrecks. Michael McDowell finished dead-last in 40th and rookie Christopher Bell finished only a spot ahead of him after respective crashes on laps 16 and 40. Bell was coming off his career-best fourth-place finish and came home third after the first stage. McDowell had finished eighth on Saturday, his first top-ten finish at a track other than Daytona or Talladega since November 2016.
In addition to hosting the first Cup Series doubleheader (two races at the same locale on the same weekend), Pocono also hosted the first NASCAR tripleheader, in which each of the organization’s three national series raced on the same day at the same track. Brandon Jones took home his first Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series win in the morning (winning a 150-mile event from Saturday) postponed due to weather) while Chase Briscoe held off Ross Chastain to win his fourth Xfinity Series races of the season.
Brad Keselowski won the second stage of the race after Kurt Busch took home the first, 30-lap segment. They respectively finished 11th and 13th.
A bold strategy allowed Kevin Harvick to win at the Tricky Triangle on Saturday, the first half of a rare weekend doubleheader.
For Kevin Harvick, the 39th time at Pocono Raceway was the charm.
Harvick took home his third win of the NASCAR Cup Series season and his first at Long Pond, Pennsylvania landmark known as “The Tricky Triangle” in his 20th season on the circuit. His win at the Pocono Organics 325 in partnership with Rodale Institute also marks the 52nd career Cup victory of his career.
“Everybody from Stewart-Haas Racing has done a great job. We’ve had really fast cars every time we’ve come to Pocono, just hadn’t got to Victory Lane,” Harvick said in a postrace Zoom conference. “It was definitely awesome to get to Victory Lane today with our Busch Beer Ford. Proud of all the men and women at Stewart-Haas Racing for everything they’re doing right now.”
Harvick won with a bold strategy instituted by he and crew chief Rodney Childers. The No. 4 car pitted on lap 66 of 130 but only took two tires. In the early stages of the final 53-lap stage, he and teammate Aric Almirola were running in the top two spots when each hit pit road with 37 circuits to go. Duplicating the two-tire strategy, Harvick emerged from pit road with about a 12-second advantage over his Stewart-Haas teammate that had won the second stage and led the most laps on the afternoon/early evening.
The win at Pocono was the first win for both Harvick and Childers. They previously had collaborated on four runner-up finishes at Long Pond and Childers brought over an additional such finish while working with Mark Martin in 2012. Harvick has now won at every track on the Cup Series circuit with the exceptions of Kentucky and the Charlotte road course. He’ll get the respective opportunities on July 12 and October 11.
“I want to win everywhere,” Harvick said. “As well as we’ve run here, you definitely talk about it. For us, it was kind of one of those things where you joke around about it. We’ve run plenty good enough to win races here. It’s kind of like Texas. We finally knocked down that wall and won three years in a row. Hopefully that’s the same trend that happens here at Pocono.”
There’s hardly any time for Harvick to celebrate the victory, as the Cup Series immediately returns to action in Long Pond on Sunday for the Pocono 350 (4 p.m. ET, FS1), which will run 10 laps and 25 miles longer than its predecessor. With the top 20 of the starting lineup set up through inversion of Saturday’s results, Harvick will have to start 20th. Drivers are also mandated to use the same car than ran in the 325-mile event.
That was the reason Harvick opted not to perform a celebratory burnout after scoring his victory. Even if he wasn’t planning on saving the motor for Sunday, Harvick declared that he has no interest in celebrating until fans are back in the stands on a full-time basis and he can celebrate his triumphs in victory lane with his race team.
“‘Im not doing any more celebrations with nobody out there to celebrate with. Until the fans come back, I’m not doing a burnout, standing on the car, doing any of that stuff. It doesn’t feel right not having my team in Victory Lane,” Harvick said. “We miss the fans. I miss my team being able to be right in there with us because those are the guys and gals that are making it happen. It’s tough to give an elbow bump or wave at them.”
The pole-sitter Almirola (having won the position through a random draw) finished third behind Denny Hamlin while rookie Christopher Bell finished a career-best fourth. Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle rounded out the top five.
Race Notes
The 350-mile event will actually be the final of three Sunday races at Pocono. All three of NASCAR’s national series will be racing on the same day for the first time in the association’s history. The Gander RV & Outdoor Truck Series race, the Pocono Organics 150 to benefit Farm Aid was originally supposed to be run on Saturday but was postponed due to inclement weather (9:30 a.m. ET, FS1). In the middle will be the Xfinity Series’ Pocono Green 225 Recycled by J.P. Mascaro & Sons (12:30 p.m. ET, FS1). The Cup Series itself saw their own Saturday event delayed by an hour due to the aforementioned rain.
Ryan Blaney (12th) saw his streak of consecutive top-five finishes end at four. Blaney nonetheless moved up to the runner-up spot in the current NASCAR standings, 29 points behind Harvick.
Michael McDowell (8th) earned his first top-ten finish at a track other than Daytona and Talladega since the November 2016 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Driver of the No. 34 Ford for the underfunded Front Row Motorsports, McDowell has finished in the top 20 in seven of the last nine races.
By virtue of his 20th place finish, Ryan Preece will Sunday afternoon’s pole-sitter. Preece previously earned the pole at May 20’s Darlington race via the same method. Austin Dillon finished 19th and will start alongside him in the front row.
Tyler Reddick and Erik Jones were each involved in a tough wreck in the front stretch that played a major role in forming the latter stages of the Cup Series playoff picture. Reddick entered holding the 16th and final postseason seed, beating Jones out by a single point. Jones’ No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was forced to the garage, relegating him to a 38th-place finish. Reddick managed to get back on the track to finish 30th. He continues to lead Jones by eight points for the final spot on the playoff grid.
Quin Houff also failed to finish after he was involved in a wreck on lap 16 while B.J. McLeod was ousted due to a transmission failure.
Martin Truex Jr. won the first two stages, but Kevin Harvick led all but three of the final 108 laps to win NASCAR’s yearly visit to Atlanta.
Time will tell when Trae Young and Matt Ryan are allowed to provide the Atlanta area some clutch fourth quarter antics again. Kevin Harvick was more than happy to fill the quota on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Ford led all but three of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500’s final 108 circuits en route to his second win of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series campaign. His second win of season, both coming during NASCAR’s ongoing return from the coronavirus-induced pause, has now afforded him a 48-point cushion in the Cup Series points standings.
Harvick previously won The Real Heroes 400 last month at Darlington Raceway.
Atlanta has always been a special place for Harvick. The 1.5-mile oval played host to Harvick’s first Cup Series victory back in 2001. Then driving the No. 29 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing, it was only his third start in NASCAR’s premier division after replacing the late Dale Earnhardt Sr. in his rebranded No. 3 car. Harvick held off Jeff Gordon by .006 seconds to secure the emotional win.
No such dramatics were needed on Sunday. After leading 46 laps during the opening stage, Harvick retook the top spot from Kyle Busch on a semi-permanent basis at the onset of the third stage. The three-lap mercy was granted only when Harvick made his final pit stop on lap 269 of 325, forcing him to briefly relinquish the lead to Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano. He would retake first place after the two fellow Fords made their own stops for service and faced little resistance en route to victory lane with a 3.527-margin over the aforementioned Busch.
Harvick commemorated his latest win as he did his first, wielding three fingers from his car as he made a victory lap around the track to pay tribute to Earnhardt. The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion passed away in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Overall, Harvick has now won three races at Atlanta, the second coming in March 2017.
The newest Atlanta triumph was historic in several ways. For one thing, it came as Harvick’s crew chief, Rodney Childers, celebrated his 44th birthday. They have been paired up since they each joined Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014. Together, they have finished the final standings’ top three in all but one of their six full seasons, the first of which ended with the Cup Series title.
Additionally, Harvick’s 51st Cup Series victory earns him sole possession of 12th-place on the circuit’s all-time wins list. He was previously tied with NASCAR Hall of Famers Ned Jarrett and Junior Johnson.
Martin Truex Jr. won the first two stages of the race, his first pair of the season. He finished third after a hard-fought battle with his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Busch, while Blaney and another Gibbs Toyota, that of Denny Hamlin, rounded out the top five.
The NASCAR Cup Series will quickly return to action, as series travels to Martinsville Speedway for the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 on Wednesday night (7 p.m. ET, FS1). Martinsville’s starting lineup will be determined by a tiered draw based on car owner points.
Race Notes
Prior to the start of Sunday’s race, NASCAR addressed the ongoing nationwide protests against systematic racism and police brutality against African-Americans. With each of the 40 participating cars stopped at the start/finish line, NASCAR President Steve Phelps addressed both drivers and fans about the current events, encouraging action in fighting racism. “Our country is in pain and people are justifiably angry, demanding to be heard,” Phelps said. “The black community and all people of color have suffered in our country, and it has taken far too long for us to hear their demands for change. Our sport must do better. Our country must do better.”
After Phelps’ speech, several renowned drivers appeared in a video urging fans to take action in the battle for justice and equality.
Bubba Wallace, the only African-American driver on the Cup Series level, was seen sporting a shirt bearing the words “I Can’t Breathe” and an American flag face mask during the prerace ceremonies. The shirt’s words refer to Eric Garner and George Floyd, African-American victims of police brutality six years apart. Members of Wallace’s No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet crew were also seen holding the shirts.
After finishing 21st on Sunday, Wallace appeared to faint during separate interviews with Fox Sports’ Jamie Little, an apparent result of exhaustion and dehydration. Wallace was later examined and released from the infield care center.
Kurt Busch (brother of Kyle) was forced serve a pass-through penalty on pit road after his No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet failed prerace inspection three times. Busch lost a lap, but earned it back prior to a competition caution on lap 25. He would go on to recover and finish sixth.
In addition to the competition caution, only four other yellow flags came out on Sunday. Two signaled the end of the first two stages, while the others accounted for separate spins from Front Row Motorsports teammates John Hunter Nemechek (lap 96) and Michael McDowell (lap 203).
B.J. McLeod (clutch) and Timmy Hill (electrical) were the only two cars that failed to finish the race.
As Jimmie Johnson prepares to join former Hendrick teammates, Dale Jr., and Jeff Gordon, in retirement, another star leaves the sport. NASCAR built its fan base around those 3 among other stars.
As every sport does, NASCAR is seeing new stars emerge as faces of the sport. Veterans like Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, and other stars continue to lead the way. Along with younger guys like Chase Elliot, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, among others, taking over the limelight, more stars continue to emerge. As NASCAR undergoes a landscape shift in terms of star power, two young drivers have had a strong start to their careers.
Tyler Reddick
Tyler Reddick was an up and coming driver when JR Motorsports tapped him to take over for William Byron. Reddick won the season opener at Daytona in the closest finish in the history of NASCAR.
Although he didn’t win again until the final race of the season, his consistency allowed him to remain in contention. He then pulled off an upset and won his 1st Xfinity title in his rookie season.Reddick then made the surprising move to jump ship to Richard Childress Racing. The move was made to speed up the process to the Cup Series in Reddick’s eyes. In 2019, Reddick dominated the series. With six wins, he, Christopher Bell, and Cole Custer shined above the rest.
When Homestead came, Reddick shined again. He won his 2nd title in 2 years in the series. This was the end of his Xfinity career. He took over Daniel Hemric’s ride in the 8 machine. He’s already flashed his skill with solid performances, including a 7th place finish in Darlington and an 8th place finish in the Coke 600. Reddick is a guy who has been labeled by some as a future star, and he could jump from RCR if Hendrick or Stewart-Haas targets him. Reddick has a bright future and is one to watch.
John Hunter Nemechek
The Front Row Motorsports machines tend to struggle to maintain a competitive machine. More often than not, a top 15 finish for them is a good day. Their newest addition, 22-year-old John Hunter Nemechek, has the potential to change that.
In his Truck Series career, in 101 races, Nemechek had 6 wins and 50 Top Tens. Nearly half of the races Nemechek ran, he was in the top 10. In the Xfinity Series, Nemechek raced in 51 races with 1 win and 30 Top Tens. Nemechek has been the picture of consistency in his career to this point. Now at 22, he has been impressive in the 38 machine.
He’s brought the machine towards the front with good runs. He’s had 1 Top Ten in 9 races and an average finish of 19th. That may seem low, but prior to this season, David Ragan never drove the 38 machine to a higher average finish than 22.9. Nemechek has the potential to vault himself into a premier car at some point if he can continue to be consistent.
NASCAR Cup Series fortune finally smiled upon Chase Elliott, who took home the Alsco Uniforms 500 on Thursday night.
Both Lady Fortune and Mother Nature seemed to hold a grudge against Chase Elliott winning a 2020 NASCAR Cup Series race. Elliott was able to finally defy them both on Thursday night.
The No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet led the final 27 laps of the Alsco Uniforms 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, winning the premier Cup Series’ fourth event since returning from the COVID-19-induced pause. It’s the seventh win of Elliott’s Cup career and his first of the 2020 campaign. Elliott’s win in the 208-lap, 500-kilometer event came after a rain delay shortly after the race’s 30th lap. Rain was also responsible for the Thursday night staging, as storms from Tropical Depression Bertha washed out the originally Wednesday scheduling.
“We battled hard and finally got our car good enough there at the end,” Elliott said in a postrace Zoom conference call. “I’m just excited that we’ve been performing well, and ultimately I want to just have a shot to win each and every week. That’s our goal as a team. Whether we do or not is one thing, but to just have a chance to be in position is the goal, so we need to stay after that goal.”
Bad luck defined Elliott’s endeavors since the circuit rebooted from its hiatus. His healthy lead on the penultimate lap of Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 (also at Charlotte) evaporated with a late caution and a costly decision to pit prior to the two-lap overtime relegated him to a third-place finish. That followed an incident at Darlington Raceway on May 21, when a second-place Elliott was bumped by Kyle Busch on the final green flag lap of the rain-shortened Toyota 500.
Elliott recovered with a win in a Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series on Tuesday night. But it didn’t alleviate the pain of Sunday’s misfortune.
“I don’t know that Tuesday made up for Sunday,” Elliott said. “It was certainly good. It never hurt anything to come over here, perform, and have a good run like that. But it definitely didn’t fix it. I think we were hungry and wanted to get back and try again.”
Elliott finally began to make things right on Thursday.
The No. 9 car ran toward the front for a good portion of the evening, finishing in the top ten after each of the first two stages (won respectively by Joey Logano and Alex Bowman). Elliott and his team earned a victorious moment when the caution flag came out with 53 laps to go after Timmy Hill’s No. 66 Toyota sustained damage.
Crew chief Alan Gustafson took a brunt of criticism for calling Elliott to pit lane during Sunday’s last proceedings. But Elliott would praise Gustafson and the No. 9 team’s adjustments in their final pit stop. Harvick opened up a large lead at the onset of the final stanza but Elliott’s newly tweaked Camaro was able to chase the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford down and make the pass.
“I’m not sure that we had it exactly perfect, but the guys did a great job making good adjustments and good pit stops there to put us in a position,” Elliott said. “I think the race going long played into our favor as compared to what Kevin had to work with.”
Elliott further came to Gustafson’s defense, defending his much-criticized suggestion to pit on Sunday. Gustafson has been employed with Hendrick Motorsports since 2000 and has previously served as the crew chief for Kyle Busch, Mark Martin, and Jeff Gordon.
“I feel like at the end of the day, he has to make decisions on the spot. I feel like we were in a lose-lose position there on Sunday, so it’s not his fault that the caution came out with two laps to go, and when you’re in a position like that you have to make a decision and stick with it. I’m not going to question him.”
“I don’t fault him. It’s not his fault; it’s just one of those things where you’ve got to make a gut call and go with it, and heck, we drove back to third. I just don’t see how you can look back at that and say he did something wrong because that position is a super hard one to be in.”
Denny Hamlin would pass Ryan Blaney for the runner-up spot on the penultimate lap. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. came home fourth, while Kurt Busch rounded out the top five.
The NASCAR Cup Series will return to action on Sunday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway for the Supermarket Heroes 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, Fox).
Race Notes
Elliott becomes the first driver to win a race on both Charlotte’s oval and Roval courses (the latter being part-oval and part-road course). The series will return to the Roval this fall in the midst of the postseason.
Harvick’s car faded over the final laps, but he managed to hold on for a 10th-place finish. The Cup Series points leader has now earned 13 consecutive top-ten finishes. Harvick led the most laps on Thursday with 63.
Bowman’s win in the second stage was his series-best fourth this season. However, his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet hit the wall while running second behind Harvick early in the final stage. Bowman finished 31st, two laps down.
A good run for Bubba Wallace, featuring a 10th-place run at the end of stage two, ended in 37th after his No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet suffered mechanical issues at the onset of the final stage.
Rick Ware Racing teammates Garrett Smithley and Joey Gase were involved in a wreck during the very first lap. Smithley’s No. 51 failed to complete a lap, while the resulting damage limited Gase to only eight circuits before his No. 53 was retired.
Coca-Cola 600 winner Brad Keselowski sustained damage in an incident with Matt Kenseth shortly before the weather delay, but rallied back to finish eighth.
Early in the second stage, Kyle Busch (winner of Monday’s Xfinity Series event at Charlotte) had a tire go down during the second stage after making contact with Aric Almirola. Busch ended the evening in 29th, one lap down.
NASCAR returned in style on Sunday, as Kevin Harvick became the 14th driver in Cup Series history to earn 50 wins.
Live, team-oriented sports returned in style on Sunday, as the NASCAR Cup Series circuit staged the Real Heroes 400 at Darlington Raceway in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Kevin Harvick was the first victor, leading 159 of 293 laps en route to his first victory of the 2020 season/
Harvick, the driver of the No. 4 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing, also earned the 50th victory of his career. He join an illustrious list of 13 other drivers to earn that tally on NASCAR’s premier circuit.
“When you look at a win like this today, this is an organizational win because you have to have your car dialed in when you get here in order to win a race like this,” Harvick said in a Zoom video conference call after the race. “Our guys have just done a great job of putting all the pieces together. Today we were able to capitalize on that and win a race.”
The win, despite the historic weight attached to it, came with a sense of hollowness for Harvick, the first winner in the unusual times for NASCAR.
Sunday’s event was, in racing terms, run under caution in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The stands were empty and media invitations were kept to a minimum. Practice and qualifying were canceled, so drivers were embarking on an endeavor at a locale known as “The Track Too Tough to Tame” with literally no on-track preparation. Harvick’s victory lane celebration was perhaps best labeled by his posing with the race trophy under the protection of a facemask and no one else around, contrasting the normally raucous, confetti-spewing antics that ensue after a win.
“Usually you get out of the car and the crowd is screaming and yelling, react. Today out of the car it was like, well, I don’t really know what to do here,” Harvick said with a smile. “I got in my car, drove to Victory Lane. There were two photographers there, no team guys. I was able to kind of get my team guys a nice little elbow bump there as I left Victory Lane, tell them great job. Those guys didn’t get a chance to take a picture with their car. Just a lot of sacrifices that go into it.”
“But in the end, in the big picture of things, being able to do what we did today, and that’s race, is what everybody wants to do.”
But the veteran of nearly two Cup Series decades was proud to put on a show at a time the country needed it the most.
“There’s a lot of people that put a lot of effort into this,” he remarked. “I’m glad it went the way that it went. I hope people that watched for the first time liked what they saw. This is a unique racetrack here at Darlington. In the end, it’s just having that opportunity to present yourself to new people. Hopefully, you can make a lot of new fans as you go forward.”
Harvick has been by far the most consistent driver during the interrupted NASCAR season. He is the only driver to appear in the top ten in each of the five races run thus far and leads the points standings over Alex Bowman, whose No. 88 Chevrolet appeared in Sunday’s runner-up slot.
DARLINGTON, SOUTH CAROLINA – MAY 17: Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Busch Light #YOURFACEHERE Ford, leads Alex Bowman, driver of the #88 ChevyGoods.com NOCO Chevrolet, during the NASCAR Cup Series The Real Heroes 400 at Darlington Raceway on May 17, 2020 in Darlington, South Carolina. NASCAR resumes the season after the nationwide lockdown due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19). (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
It was Bowman who gave Harvick his biggest challenge of the afternoon. The Hendrick Motorsports star and winner of this spring’s race at Fontana lined up next to Harvick on what became the final restart after a caution for Ryan’s Newman’s spin on lap 254. Harvick’s No. 4 team won the ensuing race off of pit road before its driver held off a furious challenge from Bowman and Kurt Busch. The Busch Light-branded Ford then drove off to Harvick’s first Darlington victory since August 2014.
“I feel like watching it back, I could have been really aggressive and cut the corner into one a little bit and maybe cleared him. I was already pretty aggressive with that,” Bowman said in another Zoom call. “Maybe I could have acted like I was going to clear myself and got him to lift. If he doesn’t lift, we both crash. In three and four I got loose under him. He did a good job of getting on my door, taking some side force away.”
“That’s tough. You’re racing one of the best in the business at one of the most technical, hard racetracks we go to. Just to have the opportunity to race him hard and clean like that was a lot of fun.”
NASCAR will remain at Darlington as they continue a quest to run all 36 races on their docket. The lower-tier Xfinity Series win run on Tuesday night (8:00 p.m. ET, FS1) before the Cup Series returns to action on Wednesday with the Toyota 500 (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1). The 500-kilometer race will run for 228 laps around the 1.5-mile track.
Race Notes
The first lap of action provided instant fireworks, as Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s No. 47 Chevrolet spun and hit the wall before completing his opening circuit. It brought out the first of ten Sunday caution flags. Stenhouse wound up finishing dead-last in 40th.
Included in the yellow flags was a competition pause shortly after the 30th lap. The field was frozen, allowing the teams to get extended adjustments on pit road while neither gaining or losing position.
Seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson nearly won the first stage of the race, but a crash right before its finale at lap 90 ended his day early. Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet hit the way when he ran out room trying to put Chris Buescher’s No. 17 Ford a lap down. The 38th-place finisher announced earlier this month that the series’ pause would not change his plans to retire from full-time racing at the end of this season.
After Johnson’s wreck, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron took home the first stage. Byron’s day would likewise take a turn for the worse shortly after, as his No. 24 Chevrolet cut a tire and wrecked on lap 111. He would bring the car home in the 35th spot, 14 laps down.
The day wasn’t a total loss for Hendrick’s squad. Bowman finished in the runner-up spot while Chase Elliott finished fourth. Bowman recently signed a deal that would keep him with Hendrick through the 2021 season. He has driven the No. 88 Chevrolet full-time since 2018
Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas took up three spots in the top ten. Defending Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin rounded out the first five while Martin Truex Jr. finished right behind him. Erik Jones pulled off the trifecta at eighth.
Rookies had a banner day at Darlington, with Tyler Reddick (7th) and John Hunter Nemechek (9th) pulling off top ten finishes. Nemechek’s posting in the No. 38 Ford was the first top ten finish for the underfunded Front Row Motorsports at a track other than Daytona or Talladega since August 2017.
Veteran returns were a common theme as the series itself made a comeback. Matt Kenseth finished 10th in his first race in the No. 42 Chevrolet since replacing the disgraced Kyle Larson. Meanwhile, Newman recovered from his spin to finish 15th. It was his first race in the No. 6 Ford after being involved in a scary wreck at the end of February’s season-opening Daytona 500.
With qualifying canceled, the starting lineup for Wednesday’s event was set by inverting the top 20 finishers. Thus, 20th-place man Ryan Preece will lead the field to the green, while Ty Dillon (19th) lines up next to him. The positions outside the first 20 will be set by their Sunday finishing positions (i.e. 21st-place finisher Bubba Wallace will start 21st on Wednesday).
