Kyle Larson, days after his first Sprint Cup win, was third and challenging.
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It was Johnson’s ninth finish outside the top 10 in his past 12 races – not the form his team hoped to have in chasing a seventh Sprint Cup title.
Harvick did make a late rally despite his pit-road issues.
“We’ve had a string of awful bad luck lately”, Truex said in Victory Lane. “We’ve been one of the fastest cars if not the fastest cars all summer long”.
The wreck occurred on Lap 204 of the 367-lap race and ended the day for Scott, who was a lapped auto. It’s just a great place and I’m just so pleased to have this garage named after me. It is the final race of the regular season before the cutoff for the chase. SHR competition director Greg Zipadelli and Harvick’s crew chief Rodney Childress have attempted changing crewmembers – including replacing the front-tire changer earlier this season – and Harvick has tried to stay positive believing his team would improve and eventually learn from its mistakes. Kyle Larson also flirted with the lead after stealing it from Denny Hamlin with 83 laps to go.
“Here tonight they had really solid stops the first half of the race, did everything they needed to do and then the gun breaks and everybody tries to make up for everything”. Harvick asked his team over the radio afterward.
“… We have championship cars and we’re just mediocre on pit road”, said Harvick, who started from the pole and led Sunday’s first 93 laps.
Harvick led five times and had a dominant Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Chevrolet, but lost ground with multiple slow pit stops that cost him precious track position down the stretch. “We were absolutely pile-driving them all night and then we gave it away”, Harvick said immediately after the race, in which he led 214 of the 367 laps but finished runner-up to Martin Truex Jr.
It’s the second time in the past six Southern 500s that single-car Furniture Row Racing wound up in Victory Lane.
However, he still finished.607 seconds behind Truex.
Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick circle the track last week at MI. Tony Stewart (27th) has clinched his spot and 30th-place Chris Buescher would be in because they both have won.
On Lap 203, Brian Scott was four laps down when Stewart attempted to pass him. Smoke was a little squirrely coming out of turn two and after clearing Scott came back up and turned the 44, possibly intentionally.
“We were just in a bad situation. I wasn’t”, Scott said.
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“I am not sure what he thought was going on there”, Scott said. “I’m really proud of the auto that we brought tonight and the things that we’ve done on the race track, but you can only make so many excuses for pit road”. Chad Johnston, his crew chief, was fined $22,500 because the vehicle failed post-race inspection. It is uncertain for now if Stewart and his team will be penalized anything because of the incident.
