KANSAS CITY, Kan: Kevin Harvick started Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 last but hard work and determination propelled the Stewart-Haas Racing team forward to earn a ninth-place finish at Kansas Speedway.
In typical Harvick fashion, however, he wasn’t satisfied.
“That was not a very good weekend from top to bottom. I just didn’t have a very good car today and didn’t have a very good day on pit road. Nothing went right all weekend. It was definitely one of the worst weekends we have had in a while.”
Harvick wasn’t facing elimination into the Round of 8 beginning next weekend at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, but a strong finish and stage points would be enough to propel the Rodney Childers-led team forward and into the semi-round with nothing but thoughts of the Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway on Nov. 17.
It took a long-time for Harvick and his No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang to march into the top-10 but once he did during Stage 2 – he was able to maintain pace and collect five stage points finishing sixth.
Harvick though couldn’t capitalize on their Stage 2 effort as he was plagued by handling woes and subpar pit stops which kept the No. 4 team from contending for their fourth win of the season.
Not even two-late race cautions could help aid Harvick forward. Still, the 2014 Cup champion earned his 22nd top-10 finish of 2019.
“We had to start in the back and had a tough day getting through traffic,” added Harvick. “A couple times we got up there and then had bad stops and got mired in traffic. It didn’t go as planned with our Jimmy John’s Ford but we did what we needed to do to get to the next round and now we get to start over.”
With an opportunity to make his fifth appearance in the Championship 4 race at Homestead with Stewart-Haas, Harvick said some decisions will have to be made tomorrow.
“I think we just have to go home and make some decisions for Texas tomorrow,” offered Harvick. “Obviously we still have to beat the (Joe) Gibbs (Racing) cars. We just have to go and see what the other cars did this season with their higher downforce cars and see how it worked for them and go from there.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
