Harvick has his work cut out for him

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Kevin Harvick has picked his way through traffic before at Martinsville Speedway, never when the stakes were so high.

A poor qualifying effort has Harvick starting 33rd, behind all the other title contenders, in today’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 on the Virginia short track. Because the rest of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship field is starting in the top13, Harvick won’t have much time to avoid being lapped.

His Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet was considerably faster on Saturday — he was fastest in the final practice of the weekend — so crew chief Rodney Childers didn’t seem too concerned about race day.

“Just gotta roll with it at this point,” said Childers. “In the spring we went back to 30th three different times and drove back to the top five like it wasn’t nothing, so you’ve just got to have a good car and drive up there.”

There’s no margin for error as the third round of the Chase begins today. There are eight drivers remaining from a field that started with 16 but has gone through two rounds of cuts after every three races.

Now the Chase hits the critical stretch — races at Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix — and winners earn an automatic berth into the finale. NASCAR will crown the champion on Nov. 16 at Homestead, where the final four will race for the title. The winner will be the highest finisher of the four eligible drivers.

It will take either victories or consistency to make it to Homestead, and Harvick will have to hustle today.

This marks just the seventh time in 27 career starts he has started outside the top 20 at Martinsville.

Qualifying had really been a strong point for the No. 4 team all season, too, as fast cars had led Harvick to a series-best eight poles.

But Childers said he was off Friday with the car, and sent Harvick out too early in the first round of qualifying.

“I just screwed up. I thought maybe the track would be good early, and it was horrible,” Childers said. On Harvick’s second attempt, he hit the wall.

Camping World Trucks

Darrell Wallace Jr. made Saturday a tribute to the late Wendell Scott with a truck painted and numbered for the Hall of Fame inductee.

Then he drove it to victory lane.

Wallace’s win in the Kroger 200 on Saturday at Martinsville Speedway came a year after he became the first Black driver to win a national NASCAR race since Scott in 1963. Kyle Busch Motorsports changed the number of Wallace’s Toyota truck on Saturday from No. 54 to No. 34 to honor Scott, the NASCAR pioneer who will be posthumously inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in January.

“It means a lot; I know I had a guardian angel looking over me this weekend,” Wallace said. “To be able to put (the truck) in victory lane, you couldn’t ask for a better weekend.”

Timothy Peters finished second, followed by Crafton, Erik Jones and Ryan Blaney.