RICHMOND, Va.: A brilliant late race strategy by crew chief Rodney Childers almost propelled Kevin Harvick to Victory Lane for the first time since September 2020 in Sunday afternoon’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway.
For much of Sunday’s spring showdown in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Harvick hovered on the back half of the top-10 and finished 10th and seventh respectively in the opening two stages, but with the 400-lap race not spewing out an array of caution flags, teams had to put their thinking caps on – especially during the long green flag runs on what they could do to propel themselves in contention for the seventh Cup Series checkered flag of the 2022 season.
The final 136 laps of the race went caution-free which sent strategies into overdrive with most of the field vying to pit early and hope for a late caution which would bring them to pit road for new tires and a splash of fuel to the finish.
For Childers and his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team, however, he kept his veteran driver on the track through Lap 353 which saw Harvick come to pit road for his final stop of the day that included four tires and fuel and an approach to keep Harvick out at all costs to the finish.
Over the final 47 laps of the race, Harvick had to wait for their strategy to come full circle, but when the gap to leader William Byron began to shrink considerably, especially over the final 10 laps of the race, Harvick and Denny Hamlin – the other car on the same strategy saw their plan accelerate over the rest of the competition.
Quickly Harvick found himself around Kyle Larson to enter the top-five then came the No. 19 Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. and within the final four laps of the race, Harvick took second from Byron and began his attempted rundown on Hamlin.
Despite seeing the back bumper of Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry, Harvick found himself in lap traffic on the final lap of the race that prevented him from putting pressure on Hamlin and scoring his first win since
“Yeah, just proud of everyone on our Ford Mobil 1 Mustang for staying there and having a great strategy and doing everything they did all day,” said Harvick after the race. “First clean day we’ve had all year. Cars have been fast.”
Without the lap traffic that included his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Aric Almirola, Harvick thought he had a chance at stealing the victory from Hamlin – but admitted that it took too much time to navigate the traffic and so few laps left in the race.
“Had a shot there at the end,” added Harvick. “I wanted to be close enough with the white to just take a swipe at him. Yeah, the lap cars there kind of got in the way and I lost a little bit of ground.
“Still a great day for us. Just hopefully a little momentum in a positive direction.”
Even with the strategy, Harvick was pleased that the No. 4 team had a trouble-free day on pit road and the on the track.
“It was a good day,” sounded Harvick. |We kept chipping away at it and they had the right strategy to win the race and just wound up one short. We finally had a day where nothing went wrong.”
Unofficially, Harvick heads to Martinsville (Va.) Speedway for a 400-lap shootout under the lights on April 9, eighth in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, 19 points behind Alex Bowman.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
