Kevin Harvick increased the pressure on Denny Hamlin at the end of the Brickyard 400.
And on a cooling track, Hamlin’s worn tires simply ran out.
When the sun went down on Indianapolis Motor Speedway Sunday and Hamlin was seven laps from one of the few victories that eluded him, he sped off the front wall of the turn with a flat right-front tire, and Harvick beat Matt Kenseth in the final restart to win his second consecutive Brickyard.
“We had a lot of tire wear today so I was able to really push my car as hard as I could,” said Harvick after his third 400th title. “I was able to push him a little harder than the last race than before in the race.” . and when the sun went down the track was getting cold and speeds were going up in the corners. “
The strategy worked perfectly, as did the Stewart-Haas Racing holiday weekend.
Harvick not only rushed to his 53rd win to move past one to tie Lee Petty for 11th on the NASCAR race list: Teammates Aric Almirola and Cole Custer, a rookie, finished on the third and fifth Sunday. Stewart-Haas’ fellow rider Chase Briscoe won the Xfinity Series race on Saturday or the road course.
Harvick tied Hamlin with a fourth season victory and led the points. The California driver has four consecutive finishes in the top 10.
And for the third consecutive race, it looked like it would be another double for Harvick and Hamlin.
But until the last surprising turn, Hamlin looked like he would take his first Brickyard.
“It is alone, it is difficult. I hate the FedEx team, ”said frustrated Hamlin. “It was just a kind of roulette if (the tire) stayed together or not and mine didn’t.”
How dominant have Harrvick and Hamlin been recently?
After swapping wins and runners-up at Pocono last week and Sunday’s result, they have combined for seven of 12 wins since the season restarted at Darlington in mid-May and is just the second time in seven Hamlin races and his No .11 Joe Gibbs Racing’s inning hasn’t finished in the top seven.
But when Childers plotted the strategy and monitored tire wear, he felt Hamlin was on loan.
“We tried to go a little bit safe and we backed up a little to save our tires,” he said. “It depends on how that situation develops in the race and it happened that we were out there a long time on tires, so going back was the way to go.”
Kenseth was unable to catch it.
“We were really fast,” said Chip Ganassi Racing driver. “I think if we were up front, it would have been hard to beat.
One person was noticeably absent: seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson in Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 car. Johnson watched the race from his Colorado home as the longest active streak in the consecutive series and the fifth longest in series history ended in 663. Johnson hoped to become the third driver to win five races in the oval of 2.5 miles.
Instead, Justin Allgaier replaced him in the car and he didn’t stay long.
Allgaier was involved in a six-car crash near the pit road entrance that put up a red flag on lap 16 when one of Ryan Blaney’s crew members was caught between two cars. Track workers put Zachary Price on a stretcher. He was eventually transported to a nearby hospital, but there was no immediate post-race update.
Two laps later, Allgaier’s day was over.
“I didn’t know if I got the knight at number 12 or not,” Allgaier said. “Once the accident started happening in front of us and we all bottled up there, we bumped into one car after another. It is just a shame. I hate him for these guys. “
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Kurt Busch also had a bad day after starting his 700th career. After starting second, his hopes of winning one of the Cup crown jewels were dashed by an early mistake at the pit stop. An airplane flew onto the track during pre-race activities to celebrate the milestone, which broke a tie with Hall of Famer Buddy Baker for number 16 on the series’ race list.
NASCAR’s weather problems also continued, this time with the start delayed 55 minutes by lightning.
But once the race started, it was a clean navigation for Harvick. He led for most of the first stage before giving way to William Byron, who chose not to play with nine laps and then won the second stage before winning the grand prize.
“We weren’t going to go through him (Hamlin) unless he made a big mistake and obviously his tire was wearing out,” Harvick said. “His car was a little bit better than me in the long run. We were better off on the restart, so we would have needed a warning: we couldn’t have beat him on a green.”
