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Sunday, July 15
Cautions help Harvick dodge trouble
By Jerry Bonkowski
ESPN.com
JOLIET, Ill. -- If his predecessor, Dale Earnhardt, was known as The
Intimidator, then Winston Cup rookie Kevin Harvick can be called The Dominator after winning Sunday's inaugural Tropicana 400 at the new
Chicagoland Speedway.
"When we hired him, I said Kevin Harvick was the real deal, and I think today
backed it up," team owner Richard Childress said. "I think you saw in his
performance today that there's no question about his driving ability."
|  | | Kevin Harvick had been slated to run seven races for RCR this season. |
Harvick paced the rest of the field for 113 of the race's 267 laps in his No.
29 GM Goodwrench Service Plus Chevrolet. Without question, he had the best
car of the day, having extra power in reserve when he needed it, as well as
driving with a style and savvy that would have made Earnhardt proud.
"Our goal is to win races, run as good as we could, and I think that's what
he'd (Earnhardt) want us to do," said Harvick, who jumped from 10th to seventh
place in the Cup points standings with Sunday's win.
"I think right now he'd be pretty proud of this group for staying in contention, running up front and
not giving up on any part of it. You can say whatever you want, but he's the
reason we're all here and he's the reason this sport is at the level it's at."
Harvick made the second win of his rookie season in Winston Cup look
relatively easy, even though it was anything but. He battled a problem with
a faulty O-ring in his gas tank (which is supposed to seal the tank after the
gas can is removed) that allowed fuel to evaporate quicker than normal,
threatening to keep him from being able to finish the race without at least
one extra pit stop.
Most teams had calculated they'd need four fuel pit stops to complete the
race. Harvick was looking at a minimum of five stops with the O-ring problem.
"The O-ring is supposed to seal up when you put the quick-fill (fuel) nozzle
in and then take it out," crew chief Kevin Hamlin said. "After the first
stop, the O-ring pulled halfway out and wouldn't seal back up again, so we'd
lose about a gallon to a gallon and three-tenths on every run.
"So we had to back our schedule of fuel runs back, and it could have cost us.
We were fortunate the race laid out the way it did.
"The 6 (Mark Martin), the 17 (Matt Kenseth), the 97 (Kurt Busch), and I don't
remember who else, there was a whole bunch of cars that pitted on lap 199 and
200, and they were going to try and make the rest of the (race) on that fuel.
"So we were going to be racing for fourth place anyway, if there hadn't been
a caution in that last segment, which there was, so we won -- yeah!"
Had there not been four cautions in the final 68 laps of the race, Hamlin
said Harvick would have been forced to pit for fuel with about 25 laps left.
"We lucked out," Hamlin said. "We put in probably more than we needed. We let
(fifth-place finisher Jimmy Spencer) get out in front of us, but we wanted to make sure we had plenty in there so we could leak some out. It was better
safe than sorry, but we didn't want anything less than a win."
But fate shined on Harvick, as caution periods fell in such an ideal way that
he was able to dip into the pits to keep his gas tank topped off, giving him
more than enough fuel to finish, holding off late charges from runner-up
Robert Pressley and Ricky Rudd.
While the O-ring situation was a major concern, everything else on Harvick's
car worked to near-perfection during the race. The only major adjustment or
change on the car needed other than normal tire changes and fuel fill-ups was
tightening two springs in his car's sway bar.
"That shows you how good the car was all race," said Harvick, who becomes the
fourth multiple winner on the Winston Cup circuit this season, following Jeff
Gordon and Dale Jarrett, each with three wins, and Tony Stewart, who has
two victories.
What promised to be one of the fastest races on the circuit this season was
slowed considerably by 10 caution periods totaling 56 laps, more than
one-fifth of the total event. Harvick wound up taking the checkered flag with
a winning average speed of 121.200 mph.
The sellout crowd of more than 75,000 watched a race that admittedly was
boring at times, with cars being considerably spaced out around the 1.5-mile
D-shaped oval. However, things got interesting when they counted,
particularly in the final 25 laps.
First, Gordon appeared to be one of the few who had the setup to catch
Harvick. Having started 28th, Gordon continued to thread his way through the
field. He had made his way into the top five when a cylinder in
the engine of his No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet let loose, sapping power and
ultimately dropping Gordon to a disappointing 17th-place finish.
Pressley recorded the highest finish ever of his lengthy Winston Cup career. When the final caution (which resulted from
Stewart's crash on lap 257) period was over and the final dash to the finish
began on lap 263, Pressley made a valiant effort to challenge Harvick, coming
close three times in the corners, but did not have enough passing power to
slink by the 29 car.
|
“ |
I don't mind things being in the memory of, because it is in memory of
(Earnhardt). Everything we do this year, Dale Earnhardt is
the reason we're racing both series (Busch and Winston Cup), and we want to
do the best we can for him. ” |
|
|
— Kevin Harvick |
Pressley even gave Harvick a friendly nudge on the restart, as if to let the
rookie driver know there was a wily veteran behind him.
"I don't know if he was trying to intimidate me or what," Harvick said. "I'm
sure I knocked the grill out of his car because he got a pretty good brake
check. I knew the game was over after that."
Some observers said Harvick's win Sunday helped him to establish more of his
own identity, rather than be a continuation of the memory and grieving over
the late Dale Earnhardt, who was killed in the season-opening Daytona 500 in
February.
Harvick, however, disagreed somewhat.
"I don't mind things being in the memory of, because it is in memory of
(Earnhardt)," Harvick said. "Everything we do this year, Dale Earnhardt is
the reason we're racing both series (Busch and Winston Cup), and we want to
do the best we can for him."
The state of Illinois has been good for Harvick's career. In addition to
Sunday's victory, next week will mark one year that he won his first Busch
Series race at Gateway International Raceway near St. Louis.
"I've been in this sport 30-some-odd years, and you see the greats come
along," team owner Richard Childress said afterward. "I think (Harvick) has
everything it's going to be take to be one of the greats, plus be on the
stage at New York some day (for NASCAR's annual postseason championship
awards)."
Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.
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