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Strategy late in race paid off for Harvick

Stewart, Harvick want more funding devoted to grassroots racing at ISM Raceway. Late pit-stop strategy paid off for Harvick.

The spotlight was on the four drivers who contended for victory during an unusually long green-flag run to the finish in Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway. But spare a thought for their co-stars in the drama that sent NASCAR off on a spectacular curtaincloser until returning to the transformed facility in November.

The crew chiefs.

For it was they who had to decide when to pit for the last time, fingerscrossed a caution flag wouldn’t allow their competitors to refuel and get four new tires with the field slowed, thus giving the hook to their hopes for victory.

“It’s one of the toughest decisions we have to make,” said Darian Grubb, who made the calls for fourth-place finisher Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Toyota.

With the final caution concluding after just 198 of the 312 laps, drivers would have to make a final stop under green. The sequence among the top 10 was fascinating.

Rookie William Byron was first, turning left onto pit road on lap 253. Two laps later it was his teammate, Chase Elliott.

Then, on successive laps, here came Kevin Harvick, Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. Leader Kyle Busch hung on longest, pitting on Lap 260.

Brad Keselowski and Ryan Newman, whose only real chance was to pit under yellow, stayed out until they could wait no longer.

When Newman, the defending race winner, finally yielded on Lap 290, Harvick’s No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford was in front and raced on to his third consecutive win in four Monster Energy Cup Series races this season.

In recent track history, late-race cautions have forced crew chiefs to calculate if stopping for new tires – 2 or 4 – was worth giving up track position.

“When you’re in that situation you look at the 3-4 cars you’re racing and everybody usually pits within one or two laps of each other,” said Rodney Childers, Harvick’s crew chief. “I usually just go with my gut. It seems like when you let people influence you and ask their opinion, it’s the wrong thing.”

“I like it when we get to go to the end on a long green,” Hamlin said.

“As drivers, we like to have the result in our hands, so to speak. But you have to let the crew chiefs make that call on pitting under green, because they can see the big picture a lot better than we can.”

As a consummate racer, Tony Stewart, Harvick’s team owner, was loving the intense drive to the line.

“Yeah, I like it, because the good thing is, the guys who are up front earned their way there,” he said. “I felt like that was part of the strategy of driving these things, to do a good job budgeting your tire (wear), to get to the end. What we saw today was very good, very exciting racing.”