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Bob PockrassNASCAR
FORT WORTH, Texas – Kevin Harvick saved the day at Texas Motor Speedway.
Seriously.
We could say that a winning driver for the eighth time this year – leading 177 on 377 laps, including 65 on the last 80 – and almost a lock to get to the Homestead-Miami Speedway has the wind in the sails kind of day .
But if Harvick had not won the AAA Texas 500 – when he made no mistake in the pits and was not involved in a crash – the race would have been disappointing in that the rider who clearly had the best car does not win and can not do anything about it.
Kevin Harvick won another NASCAR Cup championship title, beating Ryan Blaney on extra pole Sunday to clinch victory in Texas.
NASCAR sent Jimmie Johnson to the back of the pack to start Sunday's race after failing three times at the technical inspection, but Johnson's car failed only twice.
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When Ryan Blaney overtook him after 24 laps, it appeared that Harvick was in danger of losing him. Certainly, Blaney had a great car, but if he had won, it would have just emphasized even more that it was a track position play and how difficult it was to get on a track that had suffered a reconfiguration and a repave two years earlier. to try to spice up the race.
"A lot of tire strategy, a lot of things happened today that have turned into a race-type track position," Harvick said. "In the end, four [fresh] the tires were faster than two tires. It took a bit to pass. … Listen, the repaves are difficult. I think they put as much effort here as everywhere we went. "
Harvick managed the pass with 20 laps to go, then held Blaney off, on a green-white-checkered restart, before taking it off for a half-second.
"Our money spot was in the middle of [Turns] 1 and 2 ", Harvick said about the winning pass." He hit the apron there; we do not have it. We managed to get by [Blaney]. … It was just keeping the pressure on him to prevent him from hitting his marks.
"He ended up missing out on his marks – fortunately, it's a trick I've touched on mine."
The race began with an embarrassing NASCAR error that sent Jimmie Johnson to the rear because a NASCAR official wrote that Johnson had failed three times during the pre-technical inspection.
Despite several Twitter posts published by reporters on the site, indicating that Johnson had made a third attempt, and the fact that the penalty was communicated to the media about 15 minutes before the engines started, no one seemed to alert the responsible for the error. Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew commander, did not even hear about it before the pace reached his turn; It is obvious that he does not appear on the media mailing list, but the communication problem was not communicated early enough to give Knaus time to argue.
From there, the teams supposed to be the best in the sector continued to play as if they did not want to win the championship.
Kyle Busch was penalized for speeding and later had to miss under the green for a loose wheel. Martin Truex Jr. also had a loose wheel, but he even saw himself inflicting a penalty for having crossed more than three pit boxes in his booth.
"The sun went down and there were all kinds of shadows and everything looked different, and I just went too early, two feet away," Truex said. "I knew it right away – it's the first time I think I've done it since applying the rule – what a silly moment."
Truex managed to reach the ninth position after taking the lead again. Busch never did it, finishing 17th.
But none of the playoff drivers who took the best start could fill their deficits. Chase Elliott, Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola finished sixth, seventh, eighth, but did not accumulate enough points to win on Truex.
Elliott left the track frustrated.
"I do not know what genius has decided to open this place or remove 1 and 2 banking," Elliott said of the reconfiguration, which made turns 1 and 2 different from turns 3 and 4 . "[It was] not a good move for the entertainment factor, in my opinion. "
Almirola left frustrated Joey Logano – last week's winner at Martinsville and having already secured a place to compete for the championship – for having pinched him in the bend when he felt useless.
"It really made the job difficult, which was really useless," Almirola said. "He could have run fourth, fifth, eleventh, it does not matter.He's still going to Homestead and racing for a championship.It's just not smart."
Even Harvick had a chance where the frustration could have ruined him, as he felt a vibration on one of the restarts, fearing to have a loose wheel.
"For me, it's a Goodyear problem," Harvick said. "It's not like magic that every team has loose wheels and things go wrong, some problems come with the tires."
Harvick noted that Goodyear had corrected a tire problem that erupted in April. It was positive one day when the crowd seemed disappointing. TMS is one of the largest tracks (137,000 in December 2017), but it was certainly not nearly half full.
Fans know it's a tough place to go, and NASCAR is hoping that its set of rules for 2019 will make a difference as far as the drivers' ability to fight their heads is concerned.
"We were able to find a way to overtake, to run our car," said Harvick. "For some reason, we are really happy with the things that are going on for us on this particular circuit since they've redone it."
Result of the day: Kyle Busch lost ground, seeing his cushion go 46 points ahead to 28 points to his brother Kurt, the first outdoor driver to start the race to eliminate next week in Phoenix.
Truex entered the race with a 25-point advantage over Kurt Busch, and that remained the same. Elliott is 39 points, Almirola 57 points and Bowyer 73 points.
"We are in a good position," said Truex. "We have to go to Phoenix and have a good day, but I know we can do it. (…) If we have another day like today, we'll be fit to go to Miami."
Unless something crazy happens in Phoenix, the four drivers in Miami will be the Big 3 of Harvick, Kyle Busch and Truex, plus Martinsville winner Logano.
If that happens, many people will think that the championship is legitimate, while Harvick has eight wins, Busch has seven wins and Truex, the defending champion, has four. Despite all the frustration felt in Texas, the results may seem right.
"I do not even know how you have a favorite," said Tony Stewart, co-owner of Harvick. "When you think about the reality of what Homestead is, you load all your chips in a race.
"You never know what can happen – there are always 40 cars in the race, four of which compete for a championship [and] 36 guys who can make a mistake and change the outcome of the event. "
But Stewart also knows he may have the best driver to handle everything.
"I like the fact that Kevin Harvick is out there," Stewart said. "It's a guy he does not care about, I'm not sure, it's a guy you want rather with the ball in the bottom of the ninth."
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