DARLINGTON, S.C. — On a day when Darlington Raceway honored Kevin Harvick for all that he’s accomplished in what will be a Hall of Fame career, it was right before him. Everything was seemingly aligning for him to score a storybook victory Sunday night, a win that would’ve given him a special sendoff in his final NASCAR season while also taking him one step closer to a championship.
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There was no win, however, to ensure automatic advancement to the next playoff round. Just frustration. An untimely caution, and subsequent penalty, cost Harvick any chance to win the Southern 500. And instead of celebrating what would’ve been a popular victory, he walked away frustrated about the missed opportunity.
“It was f—ing great,” Harvick said walking toward the garage.
The sequence that derailed Harvick’s night occurred 56 laps from the finish as he attempted to make a green-flag pit stop from the second position. Seeing that Harvick was headed to pit road, 23XI Racing alerted race leader Tyler Reddick that he too should head to pit road immediately so that Harvick wouldn’t gain an advantage that comes with having fresh tires on the worn Darlington surface.
But Reddick felt he couldn’t properly commit to pitting without committing a penalty, deciding at the last second to complete another lap and abruptly turning back onto the racing surface. Ryan Newman then spun out trying to avoid colliding with Reddick. This caused a caution to come out — just before Harvick entered pit road, which was now closed, with teams not permitted to service their cars.
“I just was trying to respond and missed it and checked up, got back going and unfortunately I don’t think Ryan knew what was happening there,” Reddick said.
Suddenly, through no fault of his own, Harvick’s hopes of winning were dashed. All that valuable track position was now lost and with little time to recoup it.
Crew chief Rodney Childers said he heard spotter Tim Fedewa tell Harvick to stay out, but video replay shows that Harvick would’ve been hard-pressed to stay on the track as he was already fully committed to pitting when the caution lights came on and pit road closed.
“The caution came out and the light was on, and I didn’t think I could turn right,” Harvick said.
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After Harvick came down pit road the team had him stop in his stall for fresh tires and fuel. Had he not stopped and just kept going, NASCAR would not have penalized him. As a result, he had to restart at the end of the longest line. He finished 19th.
“Timmy was yelling, ‘Might as well go ahead and pit,’ and that confused me,” Childers said. “We should have drove through, but we were going to be 25th no matter what. You’re kind of screwed either way. I don’t know what would have been the right thing to do. I need to go back and watch it.”
The sequence, which unfolded in a matter of seconds, proved to be a difference-maker in a race that took 4 hours, 8 minutes to complete.
William Byron was right behind Harvick in third and also headed to pit road when the spin occurred. Unlike Harvick, though, Byron had time to react and turned left to return to the track, but when he did, he slowed, allowing Kyle Larson to move into second. And when Larson’s team had a faster pit stop than Reddick’s during the caution, he jumped into first.
“If we’re being honest with ourselves, I think there were four or five cars that, had they gotten the lead, it was going to be hard to pass,” said Cliff Daniels, Larson’s crew chief. “… Harvick gets the lead, I don’t think anybody passes him. I think the top four or five were very, very equal together just in the way the track position was kind of staging itself.”
Larson maintained that lead on the restart and won the race, while Reddick finished second. The win assures Larson advancement to the second playoff round regardless of what happens in the next two Round 1 races.
“It was pivotal because I went from fourth to second in line, and you have a good pit stop, come out in the lead, there’s 40-something laps left (and) hopefully you can lead the rest of the race,” Larson said. “And that’s what happened, so it worked out for us.”
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Had the caution not come out when it did, who knows whether Harvick would’ve won or not. He certainly would’ve been in position to score his first win of the season, as he was closing in on Reddick at the time. And in a season where Harvick has yet to win, just having a chance is a big deal — especially with Harvick set to retire at the end of the year and his team wanting to give its driver at least one last win before he steps away.
Afterward, as the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team stood on pit road next to its car, it was evident that everyone was feeling the sting of knowing that Darlington was a race that slipped through their grasp with only nine races left before Harvick retires.
“You need to be winning races,” Childers said. “I mean, I’m to the point now I just want to win races. I couldn’t give two s—s of what happens with all this other crap. I’ve been in the final four, I don’t know how many times, and it ends up being a crapshoot half the time. Right now, I want (Harvick) to go to victory lane and I want to win races with him. We came here with a good car, we were strong all weekend, and just unfortunate.”
Beyond losing out on the win, the late-race sequence also cost Harvick several valuable points. He is two points behind Christopher Bell for the final transfer position heading into Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway. The round concludes Sept. 16 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The good news for Harvick, who’s seeking to avoid a first-round elimination for the second consecutive year, is that Kansas and Bristol represent two of his better tracks. He’s a three-time winner at each of those venues.
“We’ll just go and put the gas pedal down and do the exact same thing we’ve done for 23 years,” Harvick said.
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(Photo: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
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