Dominance. It’s what Kevin Harvick has been doing best this season. It started in the Sprint Cup Series where he has scored two victories in the first eight races of the season. Now it has made its way to the Nationwide Series as he picked up his first victory early Saturday morning.
Richmond International Raceway is one of Harvick’s best tracks. With this victory, he now has the most all-time Nationwide Series victories at the track with seven. He proved why he holds that record as he flat out dominated every aspect of tonight’s race.
“We got a little off on one set of tires with our adjustments but kept it up there,” Harvick commented following his 41st career Nationwide Series victory. “Thanks to Kroger and Tide. Also thanks to Hendrick engines, JR Motorsports, Ernie Cope and all of these guys. It’s been awesome all year.”
The race got off to a wet start as rain set back the original start time. Once the three hour delay concluded, Brian Scott was able to lead early from the pole. He led up until the competition caution on Lap 40. On the ensuing restart, he was quickly passed by Harvick. Harvick would go on to lead a majority of the race from that point on.
Short track tempers were seen in the race as some impatience led to the fourth caution of the night. Going into turn four, Ryan Reed got into the back of Dylan Kwasniewski. The contact sent Kwasniewski spinning up into the outside wall. The damage the No.31 car suffered ended the team’s day. Kwasniewski recalled the incident by saying he “got flat-out dumped” by Reed.
Harvick and Elliott were running one-two for a majority of the race. They remained in the first two positions until the checkered flag flew, giving JR Motorsports its first one-two finish in the organization’s history.
Just about the entire race which spanned from late Friday night into early Saturday morning was dominated by JRM. This attests to the stellar start to the season the team is having as they have won half the races up to this point.
The team will surely be a factor again next weekend at Talladega Superspeedway as Regan Smith has won two of the last three restrictor plate races.
