“They crossed the line, and I felt like we won, and then I looked up at the monitor and it said we won, but then they were waiting to look at the camera, and I’m like, you just hold your breath and hope it’s the best”.
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“I don’t want to spin him out, but you definitely want to rough him up because that’s not the guy that I want to lose to”, Harvick said.
“I knew I was going to be on defence down there”. “I knew I was going to get hit, and I’m going to hit him in the same type of manner”.
Last year: Kevin Harvick raced to his fourth straight Phoenix victory and fifth in six races.
One could hardly wipe the smile off Harvick’s face, who said this is what NASCAR racing is about. “I thought I moved him enough to get by, but it’s just racing”. Edwards’ Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch, finished third and fourth, respectively.
Harvick, on the high side, turned into Edwards’ door first to try to slow his momentum. They hung on with those tires, but we were faster, so I thought, ‘Man, I’ll just move him out of the way and get by.’ I just didn’t move him far enough, and then he got up the door and I thought I was trying to time – I thought, “I think he’s going to beat me.’ So I tried to sideswipe him before he got there, but I needed to be in front of his front tire. So to start the year with a win, it’s like, ‘Oh, I got that one out of the way'”. Harvick was normally able to pull right away from the field, but with Edwards being on fresher tires, left him actually at a disadvantage.
Harvick built a lead approaching three seconds before Kasey Kahne hit the wall with six laps left to bring out the caution.
“It was a while it seemed like, pretty much from the dogleg all the way back to the start-finish line, I don’t think I was breathing at all”, Childers said.
“I feel like I was good through (Turns) 1 and 2 and at times, was good through (Turns) 4 and 4, but it was very edgy”. The Daytona 500 was decided by four inches, and so was the Good Sam 500.
Harvick didn’t seize control of the race until the second half. Edwards returned the favor in what he called “a drag race”, but came up just short.
Harvick, Earnhardt and Austin Dillon stayed out and restarted first through third, with Edwards and Busch rounding out the top five.
Earnhardt started the race in the 26th spot but had the fastest vehicle on the track throughout the opening laps. Used for the first time on a mile-track, the package helped produce plenty of passing and only a handful of tire issues after long green-flag runs.
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Busch was the only driver to take only two tires under the caution, but he was able to maintain his lead over drivers with four new tires until being overtaken by Earnhardt. He took first place for good when he doubled Edwards with 77 laps to go.
