Kevin Harvick claimed his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of 2019 and the first win of the year for Stewart-Haas Racing, 20 races into the 36-race season, Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway when he took the checkered flag in the Foxwoods Resort Casino 301. It was Harvick’s fourth-career win at NHMS, most of any active driver at the track.
“We’ve run well enough a few times this year to win, but we’ve just made mistakes and to finally battle and get over that hump is a great day for everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing and everybody on the 4 car,” Harvick said. ”I was really questionable about how that was gonna go and the thing took right off. The only thing that wasn’t good was we got the traffic and my car started pushing. I knew that he [Denny Hamlin] was gonna take a shot. I would have taken a shot. I stood on the brakes and just tried to keep it straight. I just didn’t want to get him back from the inside and let him have another shot. I wanted to at least be in control of who was gonna have contact in turn three and four. It was a heck of a finish, closer than what we wanted, but it was our only chance. I would have never done it [made call to stay out during final caution], but that’s why he’s [crew chief Rodney Childers] on the box and not me.”
For his latest win, Harvick had to fend off Denny Hamlin in a side-by-side battle on the final lap. Hamlin finished second after starting the race in the back in a backup car and dominating the second half of the race.
Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Erik Jones finished third. Ryan Blaney and Matt DiBenedetto rounded out the top-five.
Harvick took the lead from Hamlin by staying out during the ninth and final caution of the race for a Kyle Larson incident with 37 laps to go in the 301-lap race. Hamlin restarted fourth after pitting and got up to second on the restart. Harvick led the remaining laps.
“I felt like we had a great car all weekend and everybody had been doing a good job. We were just in a bad spot there with track position, and I didn’t think we were gonna win from where we were at, so sometimes you have to make those decisions and Kevin did a great job on the restart and holding his own,” Harvick’s crew chief Rodney Childers said of the late-race call to stay out. ”That track position was key today and clean air and just really proud of everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing and everybody at Ford and everybody that has pushed hard for us all year to try to get our cars better and get back to victory lane.”
After starting the race in the back, Hamlin was up to ninth by the time the first stage ended on lap 75, and pit strategy got him to the front around the halfway point of the 301-lap race. After a strategy of staying out during a lap-110 caution for a Daniel Hemric and Daniel Suarez incident, Hamlin restarted second to Harvick. He lost positions on that restart, but when he utilized the strategy of staying out, again, after the second stage ended on lap 150, Hamlin was up front and led 113 laps before losing the lead to Harvick.
Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch dominated the first half of the race. After starting on the front row next to pole sitter Brad Keselowski, Busch took the lead on the opening lap and led a race-high 118 laps by the time the yellow flag waved for the fourth time in the race for a Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spin on lap 136.
“The 20 [Erik Joens] ran over us and cut our left-front, I guess,” Stenhouse said. ”We were just struggling with our Fastenal Ford. I wasn’t happy with it at all the whole day, so it was a struggle for us. We were looking to just make it to the end of the stage and work on it again and make some more adjustments, but, all in all, a pretty frustrating day. We had a decent run here last year, but it’s definitely not the day we wanted. We didn’t want it to end this way, but we’ll move on and go to next week.”
Busch first lost the lead during a lap 45 caution when Austin Dillon hit the wall. He restarted fourth after another JGR teammate, Erik Jones, and Stenhouse took only two tires. Keselowski also beat Busch out of the pits, despite taking four. But when the race restarted, Busch retook the lead and pulled away, taking a stage-one win.
Busch lost the lead, again, through pit strategy, when Harvick, Hamlin and Clint Bowyer stayed out during the Hemric/Suarez caution, but like before, he retook the lead when the race restarted.
Busch never returned to the lead after the Stenhouse yellow flag. He restarted 10th behind nine cars that stayed out during that caution. He was back up to fifth by the end of the second stage as Aric Almirola took the stage win after staying out during two previous cautions.
Busch restarted 17th at the beginning of the third and final stage after 14 cars stayed out and a couple more took only two tires. Busch was up to seventh in the running order when he got into the wall, bringing out the seventh caution on lap 214. He still managed a top-10 finish, finishing eighth.
Martin Truex Jr. in sixth. Ryan Newman was seventh after starting in the back in a backup car and suffering an engine issue that was remedied by an engine coil wire change during the race.
“Honestly, it was the most fun I’ve had all year in a race car, and that’s mostly because we had a good, competitive Oscar Mayer Ford,” Newman said. ”I slid through the box. We had a bad coil wire. We had a bunch of things that set us back, being in a backup car, starting last and to have the finish that we did at a track that is usually difficult to pass at, but I will say that I did pass a few guys three-wide, and that doesn’t happen very often here. I’m proud of the team effort, and it’s something to build on, for sure.”
Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski were ninth and 10th.
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