 Harvick prevails in Daytona wreck-fest
2010-07-04 03:03:00
Daytona Beach, FL (Sports Network) - Kevin Harvick avoided a rash of accidents, including the "big one" that involved 19 drivers, and then held off Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon in a green-white-checkered finish to win Saturday's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Harvick, the current points leader, won his second points-paying race at Daytona. His first win here came in the 2007 Daytona 500. He also won the pre- season Budweiser Shootout at Daytona earlier this year.
"This has been a great place for us," said Harvick, who started on the pole and led a race-high 28 laps. "Daytona has been one of those magical places for us since we started coming here."
It was a wild night of racing at Daytona, as the 400-mile event featured 47 lead changes among a record 18 different leaders. Seven of the nine cautions were for multi-car crashes, including the major pileup that occurred with 13 laps remaining. The start of the race was delayed by rain for one and a half hours, and it ended in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Sam Hornish Jr. triggered a three-car wreck in the final laps, which set up the two-lap overtime finish. Harvick's Richard Childress Racing teammate, Clint Bowyer, grabbed the lead from Gordon prior to the caution. After the final restart, Harvick moved around Bowyer and took the top position between turns one and two.
Kahne and Gordon also passed Bowyer, who got shuffled back in the field and spun around before finishing 17th. Harvick beat Kahne by 0.09 seconds to claim his second win of the season and the 13th of his Sprint Cup Series career. He won the last restrictor-plate race in April at Talladega.
"That really wasn't a situation that we wanted to be in," Harvick said. "I wanted to be behind [Bowyer] and be able to push him, because it was working pretty good for us. When that caution came out, and we had to split up because of the double-file restarts, I helped him as much as I could, and then we got split up. [Kahne] and [Gordon] split up [Bowyer], and that was it."
Harvick won the last NASCAR race at Daytona before the 2.5-mile track undergoes a multi-million dollar repaving that is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The track last underwent a repaving in 1978.
"I don't really care about the trophy, I want some of that pavement from the start/finish line out there," he added.
Harvick increased his points lead to 212 points over Gordon, who moved up to second in points after his third-place run. Jimmie Johnson, who won at Sonoma, CA and New Hampshire prior to Daytona, finished 31st after being involved in the big wreck.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won Friday's Nationwide Series race at Daytona, finished fourth, while Harvick's teammate, Jeff Burton, took the fifth spot.
With eight races remaining before the championship Chase begins, Earnhardt Jr. moved up to 11th in the standings. Carl Edwards kept the 12th spot with his sixth-place finish, while Mark Martin dropped two spots to 13th in points after finishing 28th. Martin also was involved in the crash. His car erupted into flames when he drove it back to his pit area.
"It's a disappointment to be in a wreck as hard as we fought and as hard as we worked," Martin said. "I couldn't see anything, and I couldn't get down. My spotter said get down. I was going too fast, and there was no getting down."
The crash forced NASCAR to halt the race for nearly 20 minutes.
Kyle Busch dominated in the early going with 23 laps led. When Busch ran in front on lap 104, he got tapped from behind by Juan Pablo Montoya, who was about to go a lap behind due to the pit sequence. Busch had not made his green-flag pit stop when the incident occurred.
"I'm going down the straightaway as straight as I can be, and yeah I guess I turn right across the nose of [Montoya] for nothing to do; yeah, I wanted to wreck myself," Busch sarcastically said. "When you're beside somebody like that in the draft, they can move you, and they have control on your car. He was too close to my side, and it started turning me sideways down the straightaway without even touching me."
Busch wound up 40th.
Despite being involved in two crashes, Kyle's older brother, Kurt, managed to drive his banged-up car to a seventh-place finish. Reed Sorenson, Mike Bliss and Scott Speed completed the top-10.
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