Harvick Battles to Top-10 Finish at Martinsville
A tight-handling condition and an even tighter race track kept Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil team from competing for victory but persistence by all involved earned the team a 10th-place finish in the Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
The yeoman duty picked up one spot in the point standings, to seventh, with four of the 10 races remaining in the 2007 NASCAR Cup Series Chase for the Championship.
In qualifying under cloudy skies late Friday afternoon, the Bakersfield, Calif., native put down a lap of 19.999 seconds (94.685 mph) on the paper-clip-shaped 0.526-mile oval. The run held up as the third-quickest circuit of the session, placing the Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet Impala SS on the inside of the second row for Sunday’s 500-lap event. It was Kevin Harvick’s career-best qualifying effort in 13 starts at Martinsville (his previous best was fifth, which he’d done three times).
The 43-car field took the green flag shortly before 2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time in front of a sellout crowd of more than 65,000. Kevin Harvick quickly moved the Shell/Pennzoil entry into second place but called in to crew chief Todd Berrier on lap 21 that the car was a little bit tight in the center of the turns.
The first of the day’s 21 caution periods began on lap 45, allowing Kevin Harvick to come down pit lane for fuel and fresh tires with air pressure adjustments. The race went back to green six laps later with the No. 29 in second but Jimmie Johnson slipped by on lap 62. The yellow-and-red Chevy stayed on the track during the second caution period, beginning on lap 68, but came down pit lane on lap 115 during the fifth stoppage of play. The previous air pressure adjustments hadn’t done the trick so Berrier ordered the tires returned to their original air pressures and an adjustment made to the chassis.
Some of the competitors who pitted during previous stops didn’t stop during the fifth caution which put Kevin Harvick in the 15th position on the restart. That was compounded by the double-file restart so he actually started 30th in the running order. The 11-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner spent the next 40 or so laps figuring out which of the racing lines worked best and, in the process, picked up two or three spots. No adjustments were made on the pit stop during the sixth caution (lap 167) but something went off-plan as Kevin Harvick radioed in shortly after the restart on lap 171 that the car was incredibly tight. Adjustments made in the next couple of spots were ineffective and the No. 29 was shown in the 17th position at the halfway point of the 500-lap event.
Things started heading in the right direction shortly after halfway, however. Kevin Harvick was eighth by lap 270 and sixth when the 11th caution waved on lap 294. Three of the cars in front of him pitted so the Shell-Pennzoil Chevy restarted the race on lap 301 in the third spot. Kevin Harvick raced in the top five over the next 100 laps but was sixth on the lap 402 restart when a couple of teams took only two tires during the caution. Contact with the No. 66 car on lap 409 pushed the No. 29 out of the racing groove and back into ninth place.
The rest of the race was basically one of track position or, more precisely, not being able to make up lost ground. The fact that there were six caution periods during the final 50 laps didn’t help at all and Kevin Harvick had to be content with the 10th-place finish.
“We were just too tight from the beginning of the race. The Shell-Pennzoil crew made changes and we were good after awhile but track position is so important at Martinsville and we just weren’t able to get back to the front,” said Kevin Harvick. “We picked up a spot in the point standings which is important because we know the championship is out of reach and our goal now is to finish as high up as possible.”
Johnson took the checkered flag as he did at Martinsville in April. The balance of the top five consisted entirely of Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth. Fellow Richard Childress Racing teammates Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton finished ninth and 12th, respectively.
The seventh race of the 2007 Chase to the Championship will take place at Oct. 28 at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga. The Pep Boys Auto 500 will be televised live on ABC beginning at 1 p.m. EDT and can be heard live on the Performance Racing Network (PRN) and Sirius Satellite Radio. Qualifying will air live Friday, Oct. 26, at 7:00 p.m. EDT on ESPN2, PRN and Sirius Satellite Radio.
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