Drivers who have success at Phoenix are plain good, like Kevin Harvick, who past year raced to his fourth straight victory in the desert and fifth in six races there. Of course, he is starting 18th, and while Harvick works his way to the front, I like Kyle Busch’s chances of dominating the early stages of the race.
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Harvick followed that by posting the fastest speed in the final practice session at midday, with track conditions most resembling those of this afternoon’s race.
Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin are one, two, three respectively to lead the pack at the start. Edwards was the first auto to pit and took two fresh tires.
“I was just sitting there with no steering and holding the steering wheel, staring at the blue wall, and I was along for the ride at that point”, he said. Edwards started off by bumping Harvick up the track’s banking, and Harvick promptly returned the favor, nudging Edwards back.
After the cars banged a second time, Harvick nosed to the line from the outside 0.01 of a second ahead to continue his dominance at the mile oval.
Harvick, working on old tires on the overtime restart after Kasey Kahne hit the wall, turned into the charging Edwards first to try to slow his momentum.
“I’ve always believed that my belts, my HANS (device), my helmet being buckled and my steering wheel are my responsibility”, said Johnson, who will use a backup vehicle and start from the rear of the field Sunday. “I tried to go to the outside of him and he blocked a little bit, and I didn’t have anywhere to go but rub him a little bit”. “I got up too high and wasn’t able to stay on the bottom like I wanted to and he got into me – like he should have – and I knew I needed to get a good run off the corner and I was going to have to get in his door and it worked out just barely”.
So Edwards raced Harvick relatively hard but relatively clean to the finish. “I think as you look at that particular race, that’s been one of our best races over the years, and I think every driver in the garage is looking forward to racing this particular package at California because it’s going to be – there’s been a lot of chatter about it”. “We had a faster vehicle”.
Crew chief Rodney Childers was also uncertain. I thought and I got to and they need to working real hard and go run on Friday ordinance long now but it’s just. It nearly got to the point where we could predict what lap the caution was going to come out. But Busch regained control of the top spot and led Jones to pit road for a two-tire green-flag stop on lap 177. He was inside the top five by the first time the yellow flag waved on lap 52. (Lap 163), Brad Keselowski (Lap 226) and Kahne on Lap 307. Bakersfield is also the hometown of 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick, and Lewis is a big-time homer.
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“I think if the rubber is like it is now, if it is Goodyear rubber that we’re seeing, then you’re going to see that in the race”, Edwards said. “It’s just one of those places where I feel like I’ve been here enough times where I can move around and find something to make our auto work”. “I knew (Harvick) had kind of been riding and saving his stuff and thought we’d be OK”.
