He led 65 laps but didn’t quite have enough to make it 66.
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Harvick has won five of the past six races and six of eight at Phoenix.
“Coming off of Turn 4, I had some momentum but I needed to do everything I could to try to scrub some momentum off of his auto”, Harvick said. “I know that if you leave here and you don’t win, you’re disappointed”.
Instead of wrecking each other and likely reigniting their feud, they wound up producing the seventh-closest finish in NASCAR history.
On the restart with two laps to go, Harvick and Edwards lined up on the outside line, and were able to quickly clear the inside line headed by Earnhardt Jr., who didn’t get as great of a restart. The final caution was during lap 305 when Kasey Kahne wrecked. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was running second at the time of Kahne’s accident, also remained on track along with Austin Dillon. Edwards, who was in fourth place, was among those who made a decision to get two fresh tires, unbeknownst to Harvick.
The race ran without caution for the final 99 laps, and on lap 172, Jones caught Busch in traffic and pulled alongside.
“We’ll look at what we are doing since it happened a couple of times”.
“Some people will say I’m a failure for just joining this field”, the Sprint Cup regular said. At the finish line, Edwards would bump Harvick trying to push him out of the way for the win.
I think we all saw a little bit of everything throughout the day. “I think as drivers and as a sport … that is exactly what we’re all looking for”. “I thought we would be OK and after that first lap, I thought this was going to be close”. But that doesn’t mean he was very confident over the last few minutes of the race. “I knew (Harvick) had kind of been riding and saving his stuff and thought we’d be OK”.
Harvick crew chief Rodney Childers made a decision to stay on the track while Edwards and others took on two tires.
“I knew that he had been saving his stuff and thought we’d be OK”, Childers said. “I probably went a little bit too much on defense just for the fact that if I got hit, I wanted to be able to drive out of the slide instead of wind up with the fuel cell into the wall”.
NEW RULES: It will be the first test for NASCARs new downforce and aerodynamics package on a mile track. And although he and Edwards haven’t always gotten along, there’s enough mutual respect that they briefly talked later about the hard – but clean – manner in which they competed at the end.
“That’s really what NASCAR racing is all about”, Harvick said. “You are coming to the checkered flag, he wants to win for his team, and I want to win for my team, and there’s a lot on the line”.
And with a predictable result at Phoenix.
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Justin Allgaier was a distant fourth in Saturday’s race, more than 14 seconds behind the victor. “Let’s continue riding the wave”.
