Racing
NASCAR, IndyCar previews
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular season is at its halfway point, and it’s clear there are two divisions of competition — the Kevin Harvick/Kyle Busch division, and everybody else.
Through 13 races, Harvick, 42, and Busch, 33, have combined to win nine times. Each has finished out of the top 10 only three times, and both are stacking playoff points like frantic squirrels storing nuts for the winter. Busch has 25 and Harvick has 24, and it’s easy to imagine a scenario that puts them in the final four for the Homestead, Fla., finale in November.
Ironically, the dynamic duo finished on opposite ends of the order Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Busch dominating the race on the way to victory and Harvick finishing last after a tire issue sent his car into the wall on lap 83.
Harvick’s 40th-place finish marked the first time he has finished last in a race in NASCAR’s three national series (Cup, Xfinity, Camping World Truck) in
1,089 starts.
Meanwhile, Busch was making history of a more pleasant sort. His win gave him at least one victory at every current Cup track. He has 47 Cup victories, 15th on the all-time list and a number almost certain to increase dramatically as he rolls toward the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
This week’s stop on the Busch-Harvick road show is Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, site of Sunday’s Pocono
400 and the first of two visits to one of racing’s oddest tracks. The triangular racing surface is 2.5 miles long with different banking in all three turns and a long front straightaway that produces rocket speeds. Kyle Larson owns the qualifying record (183.438 mph).
Although Busch has completed one goal — winning at every track — he isn’t likely to slow down. There’s always another victory waiting to pad the total.
“Nothing makes him happy unless he’s in victory lane,” said Adam Stevens, Busch’s crew chief. “Doesn’t settle for less in himself, and he doesn’t settle for less in the people around him. I take comfort in that, personally. You know what you’re going to get, and he’s hard to beat.”
There’s an oddity about Pocono for the Busch-Harvick duo. Busch won for the first time there last year; Pocono is one of only two Cup tracks — Kentucky Speedway the other — where Harvick owns no wins.
“I know that Rodney (Childers, crew chief ) and the organization itself have put a lot of effort into that particular weekend trying to get to victory lane and take that race off the list,” Harvick said. “It’s a place I enjoy going — not so much the place I enjoyed going in my previous life before I came to StewartHaas Racing.”
Although Harvick has no wins at Pocono and has led laps there in only five of the past 15 races, he finished runnerup (behind Ryan Blaney and Busch) in both Pocono races last year.
With Busch and Harvick accumulating victories at a rapid pace, and with only 13 races left in the regular season, it’s likely some of the positions in the playoffs will be decided on points. Race winners earn playoff spots; the remainder of the 16 positions are determined by points.
Following Kyle Busch in the points top 10 entering Pocono are Joey Logano, Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, Larson and Aric Almirola. For those who are counting, an alarming number of drivers remain winless with the start of the second half of the regular season having arrived. Among them: Jimmie Johnson, Keselowski, Kurt Busch, Hamlin, Larson, Blaney, Almirola, Chase Elliott, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Jamie McMurray.
Three of those drivers — Hamlin (four), Johnson (three), Kurt Busch (three) — are the active victory leaders at Pocono.