CONCORD, N.C. — Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano found themselves in a hole early in the Round of 12 after trouble struck both of them in the Queen City.
The weekend for the driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet got off to a fast start by scoring his first pole of the season on Thursday. He led the first 12 laps and remained close to the front for most of the first half of the race.
He was running third on lap 156 when his car started fading. He brought the car down pit road, they eventually took it behind the garage and retired from the race.
He was asked if he had any idea what caused the engine to shut off.
“No, it just suddenly shut off and the things that it points to are no oil pressure,” Harvick said. “It’s definitely not a power issue with the battery or anything like that. They are trying to diagnosis it. 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. Lots of things can go wrong and today they did.”
Harvick was credited with a 38th-place finish.
He leaves Charlotte 12th in points 41 back of Jimmie Johnson and eight back of Denny Hamlin for the eighth-place Round of 8 cutoff.
Logano also had a day that started out solid and turned south quickly.
He assumed the lead under the first round of green flag stops on lap 115 from Chase Elliott, suffered a tire blowout two laps later and slammed the wall in turn 1. He managed to sustain only minor damage and remained on the lead lap in eighth.
On the same lap Harvick had his engine issue, however, Logano suffered another tire blowout and slammed the wall in turn 1 a second time.
He was asked what the major issue in the race.
“I don’t know,” Logano said. “Tires are popping. We’re not the only car that had the issue, but we’re the ones that hit the wall when it happen, so that’s not the best place to have them go down. We had a fast car. Our car was capable of winning the race. We drove up from 10th and were up to third and running down the leaders, so I felt really good about what we had. I don’t know. Things happen. It’s part of racing, I guess.”
The damage, while more severe on this hit, didn’t stop him from continuing on in the race. He was running at the finish in 36th 80 laps down.
Logano leaves Charlotte 11th in points 39 back of Johnson and six back of Hamlin for the eighth-place Round of 8 cutoff.
