Kevin Harvick Says KHI Team Has Work to do Even After Third Place Finish
Kevin Harvick may have finished third in Saturday’s Bashas’ Supermarkets 200 but he wasn’t thinking that way.
“We needed a do-over,” said Harvick, “we got our butt whipped today. We were at best the third best car.”
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[/media-credit]Harvick credited his team on pit road for keeping him in contention. That in itself is quite the change from Harvick being frustrated every week with their performance. This time he chalked it up to the driver being a hindrance.
Harvick admitted that in practice he didn’t get the car set up where it needed to be. Saying he didn’t know and was nervous with where the balance needed to be and that the swing wasn’t what he expected.
The mistakes he said hurt their effort in the beginning of the run.
“I got the car so that I couldn’t drive it in the corner,” Harvick said. “I couldn’t make any time like those guys were doing to get a good run through the center and up off and pointed in the right direction.”
On one hand it’s easy to see where Harvick’s coming from. Not just himself but all of the competition got spanked on Saturday when Kyle Busch led every lap and won the race. He now goes two-for-two on the weekend and will look for the second ever triple in NASCAR history on Sunday afternoon.
On the other hand, finishing third and coming off a victory with Tony Stewart in the Nationwide Series race last weekend in Daytona, as well as second place with Clint Bowyer, keeps KHI in their rhythm. They’ve picked up where they left off from last season.
Phoenix was no different. On Friday night Bowyer drove a KHI truck to the pole and a second place finish behind Busch.
But with the Saturday domination by Joe Gibbs Racing, it led the owner in Harvick to say they had work to do. It wasn’t a bad day by any means he said but they have a plan going forward.
Any team would be lucky to have a third place finish, even if they felt like they were out to lunch most of the race. A company however, that’s accustomed to leading laps and challenging for wins is not willing to settle for being more then nine second behind the leader and never having a chance at second place or the win.
Harvick found himself in that position Saturday driving his No. 33 Menards Chevrolet.
“My fault,” said Harvick. “Hopefully we learned something today, we’ve got a little bit of work to do and we’ll go home and do that.”
There isn’t too much concern for Harvick however. When the Nationwide COT was introduced last season he won with it at Richmond. In NASCAR though, things are always changing and everyone is always learning.
Harvick knows his KHI team is quite capable of running how Busch ran on Saturday.
“I feel like we have enough resources to do the job we need to do to put the cars together,” he said. “We build good racecars we just didn’t put all the pieces together correctly today as far as the set goes and didn’t really give ourselves a fair chance.”
Harvick then revealed that during the race he had a chance to check out the competition and how a repeat of what Busch accomplished on Saturday and only having 12 cars on the lead lap can be avoided in the future.
“Driving around as we were lapping some of the cars, it’s not funny, but you could just see that it’s different the way that the cars work,” he said.
“Some of the cars looked like they had sway bars and things not on them, they were really rolled over and I think that’s just a product of trying to figure out exactly what you need to put underneath the new car,” he continued.
“It’s just going to take some time for the information to trickle to those guys. The camber and things are obviously different with the way these cars ride and the difference in travel and things and it’s just going to take time.”
That’s the competition, which has a lot of work to do. Harvick though, will bring his KHI team back to the shop on Monday and tweak on their mistakes so that in the future they’ll feel comfortable with a third place finish and know they did all they could.
Dale Earnhardt Drive unveiled; Repaving PIR, what will we come back to?
Due to Phoenix International Raceway’s (PIR) racing surface being “used up its life expectancy”, following Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 the track will undergo a complete makeover.
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Marty Flugger, the same engineer charged with the repaving of Daytona International Speedway, determined that changing the banking should also maintain the side-by-side racing that has made PIR so exciting at times.
PIR will also widen the front stretch from 52 to 62 feet, reconfigure pit road with the installation of concrete pit stalls, push the dog-leg curve between Turn 2 and Turn 3 out 95 feet and tighten the turn radius of the dog-leg from 800 to 500 feet.
The repaving project should be complete by September. Goodyear plans to hold a tire test prior to the November race.
“It’s going to change the whole outlook when we come back here for a Chase race with two to go in the fall. It’s going to be a roll of the dice and I think it’s smart on NASCAR’s part to shake up the Chase a little bit with a new race track.” Kurt Busch said.
Dale Earnhardt Drive
The City of Avondale named a street in the new Avondale City Center Dale Earnhardt Drive. It’s the first of its kind in a Phoenix metropolitan area.
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The north entrance to the new Avondale City Center will bear the name Dale Earnhardt Drive.
“This is a special honor for my family, and we want to thank the city of Avondale, Mayor Rogers, and the entire Avondale community for recognizing my dad this way.” Earnhardt Jr. said.
“The city of Avondale is proud to be home to Phoenix International Raceway, which hosts two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races every year. Dale Earnhardt’s legacy was very much felt in Avondale as it was throughout the country. We’ve also had the pleasure of watching Dale Jr. carry that legacy forward at PIR. Avondale wishes to pay tribute to the Earnhardt family achievements, as well as recognize the huge economic significance of NASCAR and PIR to the metro-Phoenix region.” said Mayor Rogers.
Denny Hamlin Could Find Redemption at Phoenix With Better Fuel Strategy
The last time Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin visited Phoenix International Raceway, he was only two races away from accomplishing what no other driver had been able to achieve since NASCAR brought into play the Car of Tomorrow for full time use in 2008. Hamlin came so close to winning his first championship, and putting an end to Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson’s four year championship reign.
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[/media-credit]Instead after leaving Phoenix, gone was the look of confidence the NASCAR Sprint Cup point’s leader displayed after his win in the AAA Texas 500 on Nov. 7. It was replaced with a look of repugnance, after watching his dominating performance take a backseat to Johnson’s late-race fuel strategy payoff. Hamlin, who led a race high 190 laps while Johnson failed to lead a lap and collect the extra five bonus points, quickly found himself having to protect a small lead against the four-time champion heading into the final race at Homestead.
The day began to unfold for Hamlin on lap 233, when Robby Gordon spun which brought out the caution and the leaders headed to pit road. Kyle Busch beat Hamlin off pit road to grab the lead with 87 laps left in the race, and Johnson passed Kevin Harvick in the pits to take over fourth place. Mike Ford told Hamlin over the radio they’re about 12-13 laps short on fuel, and that’s when Johnsons crew chief Chad Knaus, began scheming with his driver to save fuel in hopes of cutting into Hamlin’s point lead. Knaus was listening to the radio chatter when he overheard Ford telling Hamlin he was not going to make it to the end.
Knaus’s gamble paid off when Johnson started conserving fuel with 15 laps left, and the team was able to finish the race in fifth, seven positions ahead of Hamlin. More importantly Johnson was able to shave an additional 43 points with the gamble and put himself within 15 points instead of 58, had Hamlin also gambled and finished the race in second without running out of fuel.
On lap 288 Hamlin told his crew chief, “Don’t let them short-pit us, Mike,” and two laps later Hamlin also begins saving fuel knowing that Ford had already told him earlier they would be 12-13 laps short. Finally with 14 laps left in the race, Ford called Hamlin in for two tires and fuel which took him 7.6 seconds and put him a lap back. It wasn’t until lap 301 when Hamlin would pass Edwards and get his lap back, and with five laps left he was still outside the top-10 in 15th place, while Johnson was in serious conservation mode running in sixth.
By the time the checkered was thrown, Hamlin crossed the line in 12th; Johnson picked up a spot and finished fifth with Harvick right behind in sixth. Johnson as we know went on to win his fifth championship, while Hamlin would spend the off-season wondering how he could let the championship slip away so easily. Hamlin talked about what his off-season was like when he said that, “I think just getting in the offseason — getting away from racing for a little while definitely helps a lot.” Hamlin also added that, “When you look back at it and I look back at it; it was a heck of a career year for myself. That’s something that can’t be overlooked because it’s the best I’ve ever performed throughout my career — my young career.”
The loss not only affected his fans, but it also affected the mindset of Hamlin in a positive way when he spoke about the upcoming season by saying, “Obviously, my passion for one thing. You look at the video of me after the race and you wouldn’t think we’d still be leading the points, but it was just the passion because I knew that I let a big opportunity slip away from us in the sense of we could’ve gone to Homestead and just kind of rode around and collected a championship.”
“For me, it was just my passion. It’s always been in me — the competitiveness has always been in me and it will never change.” Hamlin also added that, “I’ve only been around this team, me and this team, for five year. We’ve accomplished a lot of things that a lot of guys never will. So, for me, I just look forward and try and figure out how we can progress and get to number one.”
Hamlin will begin Sunday’s race from the 12th spot in the field, and once again will have to work his way to the front. Fuel along with tires will once again be an issue, unlike the race at Daytona last Sunday when the teams were able to come in for fuel only on many of the pit stops. If Ford and Hamlin play their strategy right, redemption could come in a very big way, even though the ghosts of what could have been might be lurking around.
