Harvick can’t run on empty; Kenseth wins
Defending Sprint Cup champ runs out of gas, costing him a victory at New Hampshire.
LOUDON, N.H. — Matt Kenseth pushed Kevin Harvick down the stretch and took the lead for good when the defending series champion ran out of gas Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the second race of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship.
Kenseth advanced to the second round of NASCAR’s playoffs and gave Joe Gibbs Racing its fourth straight win.
Harvick had the dominant car and led the most laps, but a gamble to stretch his fuel to the end backfired and he faded to 21st. He finished 42nd last week in the Chase opener and will surely have to win next week at Dover, Del., to advance to the second round.
JGR continued to prove it will be the organization to beat in the Chase. Denny Hamlin, who won last week at Chicagoland, was second for JGR. Chase drivers took eight of the top 10 spots.
The 16-driver Chase field will be cut to 12 after Dover.
“We had to be there to win it,” Kenseth said. “I was giving Kevin everything I had. I thought he had us beat. He had the better car.”
Kyle Busch, Paul Menard, Harvick and Clint Bowyer are the final four drivers on the brink of elimination. They would advance with a victory next week, but Jimmie Johnson stands in their way at Dover, where he has a track-record 10 wins.
“Dover is a good track for us, a victory would be a good shot in the arm for us,” Johnson said.
Kenseth won for the fifth time this season and stalked Harvick over the final tense laps that ended when the No. 4 Chevrolet had nothing left in the tank.
Harvick was knocked out of the race last week when he had contact with Johnson and blew a tire. He later got into an altercation with Johnson in the motor home lot and shoved the Hendrick Motorsports driver.
Harvick led 216 of 300 laps and heads to Dover facing one of the biggest must-win races of his career.
He isn’t the only Chase driver whose championship hopes are on the rocks.
Busch was the first Chase driver to suffer serious damage when his right front tire blew and he hit the wall. Busch, who won the July race in New Hampshire, took the No. 18 car straight to the garage. He would rejoin the race more than 30 laps behind the leaders, finished 37th and fell nine spots to 13th in the standings.
Brad Keselowski took a big points hit as well, getting black flagged late in the race after a review showed he jumped the restart while racing for the lead.