Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR
Kevin Harvick has been in fourth place in the NASCAR Chase quietly taking a back seat to the three leaders. Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevy team have sent a message by winning the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. We are coming to get you.
In three Chase for the Sprint Cup races, Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch have been stellar. They have left the rest of the Chase contenders behind including Kevin Harvick. As we have seen during this entire Chase, one bad race and you go from leading the standings to back in the pack.
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Kyle Busch had problems the entire race but eventually succumbed to them on lap 188 and destroyed his car. Kyle Busch went from third in the standings to fifth, 35 points back. It is simply that easy.
Kevin Harvick started the race from the pole and lead a whole bunch of laps only to get caught a lap down in the middle of the first green flag pit stops. Harvick and his team didn’t let that get them down as he had the fastest car. They used pit strategy the rest of the day in order to get that track position back. Harvick led 138 laps out of 267. He earned the maximum points possible but it wasn’t easy.
“Well for me it was like driving two different cars. You know we got that debris caution right as we pitted there early and we got back in traffic and the car was just really tight.” Harvick added, “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 and they kept me calm. I was starting to get a little bit wound up because I knew we had a really fast car out front. It was just a matter of getting there because track position was so important. It was a good day just happy as heck for everybody on this team.”
Harvick started the day 39 points back of leader Matt Kenseth but was able to cut the deficit to 25 points. If he can win another race or Matt and Jimmie Johnson have a bad one he will be right there ready to win the Championship.
Harvick said, “To sit on the pole and win the race is obviously a great weekend, and controlling our own destiny by doing that, putting ourselves closer to where we need to be with the championship race. We’ll just keep having fun and keep doing what we’re doing.”
Kevin Harvick has put them on notice that this isn’t necessarily a three man, or two man race. The next six races will be great.
Brian Berg Jr. is a NASCAR writer for www.RantSports.com.
Follow him on Twitter @brian_jr1 during the race and throughout the week for more NASCAR news and commentary, or on Facebook, Pinterest, and Google.
