There was something unusual at the front of the field late in the going in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Kevin Harvick was nowhere to be seen.
The Stewart-Haas Racing driver is leading the series with 9 wins this season and is consistently the driver to beat.
Not so Sunday.
After starting from pole by virtue of his win the previous week at Bristol, he never led a lap the entire race.
So what happened?
“Everything. We just missed everything tonight,” Harvick said. “The car just didn’t drive good. We were slow on pit road and that was pretty much it. We just got buried in the field there and our Mobil 1 Ford Mustang didn’t go very good on the restarts, so it just didn’t go well top to bottom.”
One of the biggest issues seemed to be the front of the car, the splitter.
“It was on the splitter for 100 percent of the race, just hit the ground and wouldn’t go on restarts and just didn’t do much well,” he said. “We had a lot of trouble on pit road tonight, so definitely not the night we were looking for.”
He did manage to score stage points finishing fifth in the Stage 1 and seventh in Stage 2. And he finished 10th.
“Salvaged a top 10 out of it and some stage points, so I think that big picture-wise it didn’t kill us.”
“We did our job early in the race and got some stage points, and then were able to make something out of it there at the end and just salvage a decent night, but definitely wasn’t a clean night.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
- Michael McDowell announces his departure from Front Row Motorsports at the end of 2024; headed to Spire - May 8, 2024
- Chris Buescher goes from the joy of victory to the agony of defeat in less than a lap at Kansas - May 6, 2024
- Another 1.5 mile track another spectacular race as Larson makes history at Kansas - May 5, 2024