Kevin Harvick is on a roll.
One week after snapping 65-race winless drought, the 46-year-old held off Christopher Bell to record his second straight NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season at Richmond Raceway.
“It’s like I said last week, the cars have been running good week in and week out, and you see that we have a lot better understanding of what’s going on with how we adjusted on the car after the first run and were able to get our car handling a lot better,” said Harvick. “I think as it got dark, the racetrack really came to our Mobil 1 Ford Mustang.”
Harvick worked his way into contention over the course of the 400 lap event, finally wrestling the lead away from Joey Logano with 65 laps to go.
Harvick was never passed for the lead on the track again, although he came under fire late from Chris Buescher.
With less than 20 laps to go, Buescher began to fade, allowing Harvick to drive away.
Over the closing laps, Bell, on fresher tires, began closing on the leader as Harvick found himself mired in lap traffic.
In the end, Harvick found clean race track ahead and beat Bell to the checkered flag by less than half a second.
“I knew he was coming, but I forgot to shift down the front straightaway the last time,” said Harvick. “I was not paying attention and he got closer than he should have. I made a mistake there a couple laps doing the same thing. I wasn’t shifting on the back and I was shifting in the front. There was a lot going on, and made a couple mistakes, let him get too close.”
It marks the 60th career victory for the Bakersfield, California native, and it locks him solidly into the Playoffs with two races left in the regular season.
“We’re just going to keep doing the things that we’re doing,” Harvick said. “I think we just have to keep an open mind about things and keep progressing and keep understanding the car, understanding what we could have done better today, understanding what we could have done better in qualifying yesterday and do the same thing over and over.”
Considering Bell had to come back from contact with the wall, a pit road penalty and a spin on lap 251, a second place finish might have seemed improbable until the closing laps.
“Really proud of everyone on this 20 crew to be able to come back from how we started,” said Bell. “Very tough weekend for us. We didn’t practice very well and we didn’t qualify very well. And the guys did a really good job getting this Rheem Camry up front and where we needed to be at the end.”
Buescher at one point came within a few car lengths of Harvick in a battle for the lead, but in the end, he had to settle for a third place finish.
“Everyone on our Fastenal Mustang did such a tremendous job overnight because we didn’t know we were in this position yesterday,” said Buescher. “I didn’t qualify real well, and everyone worked hard and had a fantastic race car today. I think it’s a little easy with this format to feel like third place doesn’t matter, but it’s nice to be close and to keep progressing and getting better as we’ve gotten through the summer. Really neat to finish here. Really proud of everybody.”
Denny Hamlin contended for the lead early on, but was racing on a slightly different pit strategy. He came home with a fourth place finish.
Dawsonville, Georgia’s Chase Elliott was not a contender for most of the day, but managed to end the day in fifth place.
“Yeah, obviously we want to be better and Michigan was a big time struggle for us,” Elliott said. “This weekend was too all the way up until the last few runs. We will go to work and try to finish these last two weeks strong and get ready for Darlington.”
Logano, Martin Truex, Jr., Aric Almirola, Kyle Busch, and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top 10.
Truex, Jr. and Blaney are in the midst of a battle for the final transfer spot on points for the Playoffs. Many considered Truex a favorite for the win on Sunday, which would lock him into the post-season. But he struggled with handling all day, resulting in a 26 point deficit to Blaney in the Playoff standings with two races to the cutoff.
NASCAR Cup Series
Richmond Raceway – Richmond, VA
Federated Auto Parts 400 – August 14, 2022
1. (13) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 400.
2. (21) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 400.
3. (18) Chris Buescher, Ford, 400.
4. (3) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 400.
5. (23) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 400.
6. (17) Joey Logano, Ford, 400.
7. (6) Martin Truex, Jr., Toyota, 400.
8. (32) Aric Almirola, Ford, 400.
9. (29) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 400.
10. (10) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 400.
11. (4) William Byron, Chevrolet, 400.
12. (33) Austin Cindric #, Ford, 399.
13. (11) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 399.
14. (1) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 399.
15. (8) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 399.
16. (12) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 399.
17. (22) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 398.
18. (2) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 398.
19. (24) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 398.
20. (5) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 398.
21. (27) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 398.
22. (20) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Chevrolet, 398.
23. (15) Chase Briscoe, Ford, 397.
24. (19) Noah Gragson(i), Chevrolet, 397.
25. (30) Harrison Burton #, Ford, 397.
26. (7) Cole Custer, Ford, 397.
27. (16) Todd Gilliland #, Ford, 397.
28. (31) Corey LaJoie, Chevrolet, 397.
29. (34) Michael McDowell, Ford, 395.
30. (25) Landon Cassill(i), Chevrolet, 395.
31. (26) Tyler Reddick, Chevrolet, 394.
32. (35) J.J. Yeley(i), Ford, 393.
33. (36) B.J. McLeod(i), Ford, 392.
34. (28) Cody Ware, Ford, 391.
35. (9) Erik Jones, Chevrolet, Accident, 240.
36. (14) Ty Gibbs(i), Toyota, Engine, 180.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 98.11 mph.
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 3 Mins, 27 Secs. Margin of Victory: .441 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 5 for 28 laps.
Lead Changes: 16 among 9 drivers.
Lap Leaders: K. Larson 0;R. Chastain 1-80;J. Logano 81-123;K. Larson 124;R. Blaney 125;C. Custer 126-127;R. Stenhouse Jr. 128-133;J. Logano 134-172;C. Elliott 173;J. Logano 174-234;K. Larson 235-244;J. Logano 245-294;D. Hamlin 295-304;J. Logano 305-333;K. Harvick 334-340;D. Hamlin 341-352;K. Harvick 353-400.
Leaders Summary: (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led) Joey Logano 5 times for 222 laps; Ross Chastain 1 time for 80 laps; Kevin Harvick 2 times for 55 laps; Denny Hamlin 2 times for 22 laps; Kyle Larson 2 times for 11 laps; Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 1 time for 6 laps; Cole Custer 1 time for 2 laps; Ryan Blaney 1 time for 1 lap; Chase Elliott 1 time for 1 lap.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 1,11,5,6,24,12,22,48,41,19
Stage #2 Top Ten: 22,5,11,4,12,10,17,9,14,18
Playoff Standings: 1. Chase Elliott – 882 (4 Wins); 2. Ross Chastain – 739 (2 Wins); 3. Joey Logano – 718 (2 Wins); 4. Kevin Harvick – 665 (2 Wins); 5. William Byron – 649 (2 Wins); 6. Denny Hamlin – 574 (2 Wins); 7. Tyler Reddick – 563 (2 Wins); 8. Kyle Larson – 745 (1 Win); 9. Christopher Bell – 703 (1 Win); 10. Kyle Busch – 663 (1 Win); 11. Alex Bowman – 592 (1 Win); 12. Daniel Suarez – 574 (1 Win); 13. Austin Cindric – 556 (1 Win); 14. Chase Briscoe – 549 (1 Win); 15. Kurt Busch – 485 (1 Win); 16. Ryan Blaney – 766.
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series
