On Sunday, Busch led a race-high 256 laps, yet got hit by Justin Allgaier after a spin. More photos inside in the TriCitiesSports.com photo gallery.
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It took about 20 hours longer than anyone anticipated, but Kevin Harvick emerged the victor in Sunday’s rain-delayed NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Austin Dillon had hoped to mount challenges in seeking their first wins, but they didn’t have enough for Harvick and finished second and fourth, respectively.
Harvick led a total 128 laps and made the winning pass of Denny Hamlin’s vehicle with only 70 laps remaining. The No. 3 wheelman fought to overtake Harvick for eight laps, looking for momentum in the inside lane.
Things cleared after a delay of 1 hour, 24 minutes and drivers got back in their cars. “I think that would be the first place I would attack and do something different”. We had Bryan Clauson’s tribute helmet here and I dug deep and the guys dug deep and made a lot of changes that made our Ford run a lot better.
Harvick survived all the stupidty and calamity to score not only his second win of this season, but his second career win at Bristol. And when the race concluded Harvick asked co-owner and teammate Tony Stewart to take a victory lap with him.
“It gave everybody an option to do something different, and as a driver, that’s what you want, you want options”, Harvick said. “But that was pretty cool, doing burnouts with him”, Harvick said. “This is a hard place to win at”.
The past few years, Harvick said there was no use taking the low side of the high-banked, concrete track because cars were three-or-four tenths of a second slower.
“We had Bryan’s tribute auto here and some of his family and his fiancé were here this weekend”, added Stenhouse. But to get back into Victory Lane here at Bristol feels really good. That’s stupid. So, I don’t know.
The Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race actually ended up being run totally in daylight.
“It’s us against us”, Harvick said. We’ve had some good cars here over the last few years. He reclaims the championship standings lead by 27 points over Brad Keselowski.
“We had speed off the truck and made some adjustments during the competition caution and were really good”, said Buescher. “We’ve been having parts failures here, so something we’ve got to address and fix”. The race was delayed Saturday night due to severe weather.
Carl Edwards won the pole Friday and will start up front. Elliott eventually worked to the point before being passed by Kyle Busch who was leading when the rains eventually forced a red flag after 38 laps.
The 8 p.m. start was delayed more than an hour, then the race was red-flagged for almost 90 minutes after 38 laps. He had not won at Bristol since 2005 and will now go home with a 300-pound trophy that sits on wheels.
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“I don’t know. It’s a shame”, he said. “The last several times we’ve been here, we’ve had really fast cars, but parts keep malfunctioning”. Kurt Busch had finished on the lead lap of every race this season, the longest streak ever to start a season, according to NBC.
