LET IT RIDE
Harvick dominates in Las Vegas to earn second straight win
LAS VEGAS— From his dynamic opening laps to his comfortable cruise to the checkered flag, Kevin Harvick was the safest bet Sunday in Sin City.
Harvick’s air of inevitability increased with each lap around the 1.5-mile oval at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and other drivers might be starting to worry about how they’re going to catch up this year. He raced to his second straight NASCAR Cup Series win with a dominant performance, earning his 100th career win across the organization’s three national series.
Second-place finisher Kyle Busch, denied in his bid for a win in his hometown, said “there was no catching” the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Ford driven by Harvick, who started second.
“He was on rails,” Busch said, “and lights out.”
Harvick followed his stellar performance last weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway by leading a track-record 214 of the 267 laps, won all three stages and capably held off Busch’s late charge. Harvick won the Cup Series race in Las Vegas for the second time in four years, and his comfort at the track could pay off when the series returns this fall to start the playoffs.
Harvick won the 2014 season title and has finished in the top three two of the past three years. This is starting to look like another good year for him.
“These last two weeks, we’ve just hit on everything we needed to,” said Harvick, who cruised home 2.9 seconds ahead of Busch. “My (team has) done their homework on a number of things. Just really proud of everybody.”
Kyle Larson finished third after winning the Xfinity Series race on Saturday, while Martin Truex Jr. was fourth and Ryan Blaney was fifth after starting
in pole position.
Harvick has already matched his Cup Series win total from last season in three races, and now he’s headed to ISM Raceway — formerly Phoenix International Raceway — where he has won five times since 2012.
Harvick also took a moment to savor a milestone. Only Richard Petty, Kyle Busch and David Pearson have won more races across the three national circuits than Harvick, a 42-year-old Californian with plenty of good years left on his tires.
In addition to his 39 wins on the top-tier series, he has 47 Xfinity Series victories and 14 checkered flags from the Camping World Truck Series.
“It’s been a lot of years accumulated with a lot of great race teams and people and situations,” Harvick said. “When you tag that triple-digit number to it, it really lets you realize that you’ve been fortunate to accomplish a lot of things.”
Not many wins are more emphatic than Harvick’s 100th. He led 144 of the first 160 laps and comfortably won the first two stages. He was fourth out of the end-of-stage caution after the second stage, with Joey Logano getting in front with an exceptional pit stop.
But Harvick regained the lead off another restart with 73 laps to go after Kurt Busch wrecked along with Chase Elliott. Harvick emerged from his last pit stop with a three-second lead on Brad Keselowski, and Kyle Busch couldn’t catch up.
The crew chiefs for Jimmie Johnson and Ross Chastain were ejected after their cars failed inspection three times during the pre-race checks. Johnson had to start at the back, and he will have practice time taken away next weekend, but the seven-time series champion still rallied to finish 12th.