(WOMR file photo)
Kevin Harvick, who posted runner-up finishes in the first two Sprint Cup Series races of the season, and must have become extremely tired of being the bride’s maid, won Race No. 3, the Kobalt Tools 400, on the 2015 schedule by thoroughly dominating at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday.
Harvick, the 2014 Sprint Cup champion, led a race high of 142 laps en route to the victory in his Stewart-Haas Racing #4 Jimmy Johns Chevrolet. The victory was the 29th of his career but first at Las Vegas.
Once Harvick got to the front of the field from his 18th-place starting spot in the Kobalt 400, he was untouchable.
Even with a disquieting vibration on the final green-flag run — and a right rear tire (see photo below) that shredded during his celebratory burnout — Harvick had enough of a working margin to hold off runner-up Martin Truex Jr. by 1.640 seconds.
(WOMR file photo)
Harvick, who ran second in the season-opening Daytona 500 to Joey Logano, and in last week’s 500-miler at Atlanta that Jimmy Johnson won. In his last six races, dating back to last year’s championship season, Harvick has three victories and three second-place finishes!
“It’s so cool to win here in Las Vegas, and to start this West Coast swing off this way is pretty awesome,” Harvick said in Victory Lane. “Just to be in front of all these fans I’ve raced in front of since about the mid-‘90s… it’s pretty special to win here.”
The only issue in doubt for the last half of the race was whether Harvick’s car would hold together in the closing laps.
As I was listening to Harvick’s scanner frequency from along pit road, it was quite obvious that he thought that the vibration that he was feeling in the car for the last 10 laps of the race was enough that he questioned whether he would make it to the checkered flag! Needless to say, the vibration did not get any worse and he was able to fend off the challengers of Martin Treux, Jr., Ryan Newman, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Check out the unofficial results of the Kobalt Tools 400.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
