Kevin Harvick forced his way past Kyle Busch, then defeated homecoming threat Brad Keselowski.
It takes a lot to defeat Harvick these days – especially in Michigan.
Harvick rode to his fifth victory of the NASCAR Cup Series of the season, outlasting Keselowski in overtime Saturday in the opener of a weekend doubleheader at Michigan International Speedway. Harvick now has four wins at Michigan, including three in the last three years. He has been a big part of what is now a five-race winning streak for Ford at the cup level at MIS.
“In the end, it was just challenged by a whole bunch of reboots, which made it a little crazy,” Harvick said. ‘But it was finally a great day for us. Everyone did a great job, called a great race, and we capitalized on a fast car and put it in Victory Lane. “
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Keselowski was again denied in his home state. He has never won a cup game at Michigan, but he will have another chance on Sunday. It would have been quite an order to beat Harvick’s dominant No.4 car on this day. Harvick also won the first two stages of the race.
“At no point did I think we as anyone were better than the 4,” Keselowski said.
Martin Truex Jr. finished third, followed by Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch.
Busch remained winless on the year with five races in the regular season.
For the first two stages, the only yellow flags were for a competition caution and the ends of the stage. Then there were six warnings in the final stage and even a short red flag for track cleaning.
The race, normally a 200-lap, 400-mile affair, was planned this time for 156 laps. It went to overtime after Christopher Bell contacted Austin Dillon to issue the final caution.
Starting this weekend, NASCAR will include the ‘voting rule’ in the throughput procedure for all national series races, except those held on roadways and superspeedways. When drivers approach a designated place, they must place themselves in front of the indoor or outdoor track before restarting.
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“I think it certainly gave a couple of guys a chance who were kind of buried eighth or ninth,” Harvick said. ‘You can take a chance and get some track position. So I thought it was going well and did exactly what everyone thought it would do. ”
On the final start, both Harvick and Chase Elliott grabbed the outside, while Keselowski and Denny Hamlin came in. Harvick and Keselowski raced side-by-side, but Harvick had a clear lead from Turn 4, and then held on for another round to win.
Keselowski looked at the replay to see if he could have done something else, in decline.
“I had three ideas, and I saw the replay and none of them would have worked,” Keselowski said. “At the moment, there was nothing that made me feel like I could have done anything other than just be a little faster or have a little more speed.”
Harvick, the leader of the points series, won for the 54th time, even pulling with Lee Petty for 11th on the career list. He is one win behind quiet Wallace and two behind Busch.
For a brief moment, Busch sat forward to one of the late restarts, but Harvick made up to the inside of him, and Busch’s car got loose and fell back. At first it looked like there might have been very light contact between the cars, but Harvick said that was not the case.
‘I did not know if I hit him or not, but I watched the video and did not reach him. I must have caught a lot of air on the left back, ‘Harvick said. ‘I knew I had to be right there. You have to take the chance when you have it and I needed that side design right up front. I came in like an inch it looked like on video. ”
Busch managed to finish in the top five despite that incident.
‘I don’t know if he hit me or just airborne. It was close enough that it obviously disturbed my car and made me feel really bad about it, “he said.
It was the eighth straight top-five finish for Harvick, which now coincides with Hamlin’s series-leading total of five wins on the season.
