With eight laps to go in Sunday’s Brickyard 400, Kevin Harvick was watching leader Denny Hamlin disappear out of his front windshield.
One lap later, Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota slammed the outside wall in turn one, handing the lead to Harvick.
Harvick jumped out to a strong advantage on the overtime restart, and drove away to his second straight victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“I’m just really proud of all these guys and everybody at (Stewart-Haas Racing),” said Harvick. “I’ve just got to thank everybody from Busch Light. Our Ford Mustang was fast today. Mobil 1, Hunt Brothers Pizza, Jimmy John’s, everybody at Haas Automation for everything that they do for our car to be able to put it in Victory Lane is just a big effort right now to get the cars to the racetrack. Denny had his issues there and we were able to capitalize and get a great push from Cole (Custer) there at the end and bring it home.”
Hamlin had the lead after a quicker green flag pit stop than Harvick, and over the final 20 laps, was steadily pulling away from the competition.
With seven laps to go, Hamlin sailed his Toyota into turn one when the right front tire exploded, sending him out of control into the outside safer barrier. Harvick slipped past as Hamlin’s heavily damaged car came to a stop, trailing fire, in the infield grass.
Hamlin was uninjured, but joined a list of drivers who saw their days end in a crash due to a tire issue.
Harvick got the better start over Matt Kenseth on the final restart thanks to a push from his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Cole Custer, and moved to a sizeable advantage. From there, Harvick drove unchallenged to the win.
“They told me that he was really close on tire wear and our tire wear was good, and they wanted us to push as hard as we could and the pace picked up as it got cooler, so you hate to see people have trouble,” said Harvick. “I’m just glad he’s okay.”
It’s the 53rd career series victory for Harvick, his fourth of the season, not to mention his second straight and third overall in the Brickyard 400. That moves him to third on the all time NASCAR Cup Series winners list at Indianapolis behind Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.
“This is what I grew up wanting to do as a kid, win at the Brickyard and to be able to come here and have won for the third time is something that I could have never dreamed of,” Harvick said.
For Hamlin, it was another just miss in his quest to win the Brickyard 400, where’s been shutout in 16 starts.
“It’s just tough. I hate it for the FedEx team,” said Hamlin. “We didn’t do what we needed to do and it didn’t work out for us today. I had a fast car obviously and was stretching it out there but wasn’t pushing right front at all. It’s kind of roulette if you’re going to get one that will stay together or not and mine didn’t. You saw the end result. These big races – things don’t go my way all the time. We’re still going to go next week and try to win the next one. We’ll do all we can.”
Matt Kenseth wrestled second back away from Custer, but didn’t have enough to chase down Harvick at the end. But his runner-up finish is his best showing since returning from retirement to drive the No. 42 Chevrolet a few months back after Kyle Larson was released from the ride.
“It was a great day for the 42 team today,” said Kenseth. “It’s always nice to be up front and be in contention late in the race. Chad (Johnston, Crew Chief) did a great job on the box with his calls today. We had a really good strategy and the best tires coming to the end of the race, lining up fourth behind the leader late in the race, but just couldn’t get it done to take the lead. I tried everything to get to the front, but just didn’t have quite enough to get around the No. 4 car. If we had gotten to the lead though, I know we would have been hard to beat.
“All in all, though, a great race for us. It felt good to run up front and was a confidence booster for all of us. Looking forward to getting to Kentucky and carrying that momentum forward.”
Aric Almirola finished in third, with Brad Keselowski in fourth and Custer in fifth.
Kyle Busch, Michael McDowell, Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Joey Logano rounded out the top 10.
Dawsonville, Georgia’s Chase Elliott ran in the top 10 for much of the day, but faded after the end of the race’s second segment. In the end, he would finish in the 11th position.
The scariest moment of the day came not on the race track, but on pit road. As the field came down for service under a competition caution on lap 16, one driver slowed, stacking up the field behind him and setting off a chain reaction, sending cars spinning in every direction. With the pit road at Indianapolis being one of the narrowest on the circuit, just 24 feet wide, pit road was completely blocked as six cars became involved.
Zach Price, the rear tire changer for Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 Ford, was pinched between two cars that had been pushed out of control. He crawled out of the way as cars continued to spin. Price gave a thumbs up to his crew as he was taken by stretcher to an ambulance. He was taken to a local hospital for further evaluation.
In all, six cars were involved, including Justin Allgaier, who was substituting in the No. 48 Chevy for four time Indianapolis winner Jimmie Johnson, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Friday. Martin Truex, Jr., Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Corey LaJoie, and Brennan Poole were also involved.
The race was delayed in starting by lightning in the area. Once it got underway, several teams suffered tire issues, leading to hard contact with the outside wall for several drivers.
The first occurred on lap 41, when a cut tire sent Ryan Newman’s No. 6 Ford into the turn 3 wall. Erik Jones made hard contact with the wall on lap 74, leading to a brief fire under his No. 20 Toyota. William Byron cut a tire while leading on subsequent restart, leading him to hit the wall in turn 3. His teammate, Alex Bowman, would pile into the wall on lap 133 with another cut tire.
That all led to Hamlin’s cut tire in the final moments, opening the door for Harvick’s victory.
NASCAR Cup Series
Indianapolis Motor Speedway – Speedway, IN
Brickyard 400 – July 5, 2020
1. (11) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 161.
2. (21) Matt Kenseth, Chevrolet, 161.
3. (5) Aric Almirola, Ford, 161.
4. (9) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 161.
5. (30) Cole Custer #, Ford, 161.
6. (7) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 161.
7. (27) Michael McDowell, Ford, 161.
8. (13) Tyler Reddick #, Chevrolet, 161.
9. (17) Bubba Wallace, Chevrolet, 161.
10. (1) Joey Logano, Ford, 161.
11. (10) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 161.
12. (35) Christopher Bell #, Toyota, 161.
13. (2) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 161.
14. (29) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 161.
15. (19) John Hunter Nemechek #, Ford, 161.
16. (22) Clint Bowyer, Ford, 161.
17. (32) Ross Chastain(i), Chevrolet, 161.
18. (16) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 161.
19. (15) Matt DiBenedetto, Ford, 161.
20. (37) Daniel Suarez, Toyota, 160.
21. (34) J.J. Yeley(i), Ford, 160.
22. (40) B.J. McLeod(i), Chevrolet, 160.
23. (33) Quin Houff #, Chevrolet, 159.
24. (28) Garrett Smithley(i), Chevrolet, 159.
25. (39) Josh Bilicki(i), Chevrolet, 158.
26. (25) Joey Gase(i), Ford, 157.
27. (18) William Byron, Chevrolet, 156.
28. (6) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, Accident, 153.
29. (38) Timmy Hill(i), Toyota, 153.
30. (3) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, Accident, 132.
31. (20) Chris Buescher, Ford, Accident, 99.
32. (12) Ryan Blaney, Ford, DVP, 96.
33. (23) Erik Jones, Toyota, Accident, 73.
34. (14) Ryan Newman, Ford, Accident, 60.
35. (26) Brennan Poole #, Chevrolet, DVP, 24.
36. (24) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Chevrolet, DVP, 20.
37. (4) Justin Allgaier(i), Chevrolet, Accident, 17.
38. (8) Martin Truex, Jr., Toyota, Accident, 16.
39. (31) Corey LaJoie, Ford, Accident, 15.
40. (36) Ryan Preece, Chevrolet, Accident, 14.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 123.162 mph.
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 16 Mins, 5 Secs. Margin of Victory: 0.743 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 9 for 43 laps.
Lead Changes: 11 among 9 drivers.
Lap Leaders: J. Logano 1-14;R. Chastain(i) 15;G. Smithley(i) 16;K. Harvick 17-41;W. Byron 42-51;C. Elliott 52-77;W. Byron 78-82;A. Dillon 83-87;K. Harvick 88-122;M. Kenseth 123-134;D. Hamlin 135-153;K. Harvick 154-161.
Leaders Summary: (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led) Kevin Harvick 3 times for 68 laps; Chase Elliott 1 time for 26 laps; Denny Hamlin 1 time for 19 laps; William Byron 2 times for 15 laps; Joey Logano 1 time for 14 laps; Matt Kenseth 1 time for 12 laps; Austin Dillon 1 time for 5 laps; Garrett Smithley(i) 1 time for 1 lap; Ross Chastain(i) 1 time for 1 lap.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 24,20,3,9,4,11,21,18,2,14
Stage #2 Top Ten: 4,9,11,21,3,42,18,1,95,14
Top 10 in Points: 1. Kevin Harvick – 637 (4 Wins); 2. Chase Elliott – 552 (1 Win); 3. Brad Keselowski – 549 (2 Wins); 4. Ryan Blaney – 534 (1 Win); 5. Denny Hamlin – 528 (4 Wins); 6. Joey Logano – 527 (2 Wins); 7. Martin Truex, Jr. – 501 (1 Win); 8. Alex Bowman – 471 (1 Win); 9. Aric Almirola – 465; 10. Kyle Busch – 461.
