NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick is in a tough spot – Los Angeles Times
NASCAR’s traveling road show collects and throws out Chase postseason contestants weekly and indiscriminately.
Tag, Kevin Harvick. You’re it.
The 2014 Cup champion is in a precarious pickle — along with another Cup stalwart, Joey Logano — after technical difficulties at Charlotte on Sunday in the weather-delayed Bank of America 500.
Harvick lost power in his No. 4 Chevy and finished just 155 of the 334 laps. Logano bumped the wall along Turn 2, resulting in extensive damage to his Ford. Logano finished 80 laps behind race winner Jimmie Johnson. The incident also damaged Logano’s championship aspirations.
Logano is six points behind the cutoff slot and Harvick is eight points out with two races to go in the second round. They obviously have some catching up to do before the field of 12 gets whittled down to eight after Talladega in two weeks.
“I hate it for everybody on our Busch team. They made some great adjustments today and got our car back where we needed to be to run up front and everything was going fine,” Harvick said Sunday after the failure. “Lots of things can go wrong, and today they did.”
It was a double-whammy because Harvick had a solid car and had grabbed the pole for the race.
But such is the deal everyone makes with the Chase devil. One bad twist or turn, and it’s over in a heartbeat. The good news for Harvick and Logano is that they have Kansas and Talladega coming up. A victory in either locks them into the elite eight.
Harvick has won at both tracks, most recently winning in Kansas in the fall of 2013.
He also knows how to get it done under dire circumstances, scoring a must-win at Dover last year to advance in the Chase. He did the same this year by winning at New Hampshire.
But Talladega and its restrictor-plate mayhem is always a more dicey beast than most tracks. Kansas offers the most viable option when it comes to predictability.
Logano, one of the most dominant drivers in 2015 with six victories along with a win at Michigan International Speedway this season, is also in a bind.
But he’s been a cool cat when things are difficult. He won three straight races in last year’s Chase, starting with the race at Charlotte, before Matt Kenseth intentionally wrecked him at Martinsville in their infamous tit-for-tat payback deal.
As for now … cue optimism.
“We’re not out by any means,” Logano said. “Things happen. It’s part of racing, but we’re not out. We’re not going to die. This team is resilient. We’ve proved it before and we’ll just have to go out and prove it again. We just have to have two flawless races. It’s something we can make up.”
Tick, tick. No time to waste. On to Kansas we go.
Johnson in victory lane
Welcome back, Six-Time, where were you?
Sorry, we know that answer.
Jimmie Johnson was struggling most of the season. He and the No. 48 Lowe’s team were making uncharacteristic mistakes along pit road and elsewhere. It seemed like another failed run at a seventh Cup title.
No more.
Johnson scored a dominating victory Sunday at Charlotte, breaking a winless streak at 24 races. That accomplishment was highlighted by the fact that he has led the most laps in the Chase so far.
“Well, yeah, nobody has to remind me that we hadn’t won a race,” team owner Rick Hendrick said after Sunday’s race. “You guys remind me of that every weekend, and they do on TV. I think we were washed up and should have quit. But it kind of motivated us, and you know, Jimmie just lacked speed through the middle part and early part of the year. Just had to work really hard to gain it back.”
It’s back. And so is Jimmie.
Daytona track OK
You may have been shocked by pictures of flooding at Daytona International Speedway a few days after Hurricane Matthew sideswiped Florida.
Not to worry. Those images were from 2009, track officials said in a statement.
The track “experienced moderate damage from Hurricane Matthew with impacts to lights, speakers, signage, fences, gates, awnings and palm trees. … Pictures of a past weather event at Daytona International Speedway have been circulating on social media during the storm. Those pictures are from a weather event in 2009.”
“There was no flood damage to the facility from Hurricane Matthew,” the statement said.
Stewart legal update
Litigation issues have yet to be resolved for the tragic incident resulting in the death of 20-year-old sprint-car driver Kevin Ward Jr. in August 2014. Some depositions are still to be taken before a trial is set for the wrongful-death case brought by Ward’s parents against Tony Stewart. And that won’t happen until the summer of 2017, at least.
The deadline for motions asking the judge to rule on the case before trial was been moved back from Feb. 8 to May 31.
Stewart has said that he did not see Ward on the track until just before Stewart ran over him after Ward had scrambled out of his car, upset about an incident with Stewart on the previous lap.
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