At last, a win: Kevin Harvick — in his 17th try — finally wins NASCAR’s Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.
Kevin Harvick played the waiting game to perfection Sunday.
After grabbing the lead with 22 laps remaining, Harvick — doing his best to preserve his fuel and tires — was able hold off teammate Clint Bowyer to take the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. Brad Keselowski, driving the No. 11 Ford of Team Penske, finished third.
In securing his first NASCAR Cup victory of the season, Harvick, driving the No. 4 Ford for the Stewart-Haas Racing team, also completed a sweep of weekend racing at Sonoma. He won the K&N Pro Series-West event Saturday.
“I cherish weekends like this,” the Bakersfield native said. “Things always don’t go this smoothly.”
“Smooth” might not be the operative word. Forgoing a pit stop late in the 110-lap race around the 1.99-mile, 11-turn road course, Harvick was counting on having enough fuel and enough solid traction in his tires to last to the end.
Crew chief Rodney Childers “kept telling me over the last 10 laps to save gas and save tires,” Harvick said. “I felt like I was already doing that, and they were starting to make me a little bit worried. I thought that maybe we had either not got (the fuel tank) all the way full or had pitted maybe a little bit sooner than we needed to.
“But I knew I had the situation in control. We had a lot of
close calls, but I put myself in the position to get the chance to win.”
Harvick, who led for a couple of laps mid-race before drifting back in the pack, caught a huge break when Martin Truex Jr., driving in the No. 78 Toyota for Furniture Row Racing, had to quit the race two-thirds of the way through with engine trouble. Truex, a winner at Sonoma four years ago, had led for 25 laps and seemed headed for another win in Wine Country.
“When No. 78 fell out, I knew we were in control,” Harvick said. “I felt he was the guy that we were going to have to race all the way to the end. He had a great car, and once he fell out I felt like we were 100 percent in control of the race, no matter what happened, whether it was old tires or new tires.
“All I had to do was manage the car and not have to do anything but take care of it toward the end.”
Most of the top 10 was comprised of veterans. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch were fourth and fifth, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., likely racing for the last time at Sonoma before his retirement at the end of this
“I cherish weekends like this. Things always don’t go this smoothly.” Kevin Harvick, Toyota/Save Mart 350 winner
season, was sixth. Daytona 500 winner Kurt Busch finished seventh.
Harvick built his lead up to a little more than eight seconds over Hamlin, driving the No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, and Bowyer, in the No. 14 Ford, who were in a nose-to-tail chase in second. The tandem shaved a few tenths of a second off Harvick’s advantage with four laps remaining, but Harvick was able to rebuild his lead to a little more than nine seconds entering the final lap.
He figuratively coasted to the win from there.
But it could have gone horribly wrong. Had there been any reason the race had fallen under the caution flag in the late stages, the field would have regrouped and Harvick, with his dicey fuel and tire situation, would have been in dire straits when the green flag was dropped.
“We were hoping to catch a yellow” flag, Keselowski said. “That would been a good move for us.”
Fortunately for Harvick, his gamble paid off.
“We had the best car and the right strategy today,” he said.