Harvick Has Some Unfinished Business At Michigan

While most of the focus continues to be on the “Big Three” of Harvick, Busch and Martin Truex Jr., including their ability to dominate with stage and race wins, the 70 points that separate Busch and Harvick is another point of emphasis with just four regular-season races remaining.

At the conclusion of regular-season-ending Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the points leader collects 15 playoff points while the driver who finishes second collects 10. That five-point differential between first and second in the regular-season championship could play a vital role in whether a driver makes the winner-take-all Championship 4 playoff finale at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway.

Harvick will continue his quest for playoff points in the four races that remain in the regular season. Thus, even more pressure to start up front and, ultimately, to try to win the Busch Pole Award. Harvick ranks second with 33 playoff points heading to Michigan, just two markers behind Busch’s 35 and six ahead of Truex.

The Big Three have accounted for 16 of the 22 race wins in 2018 and nearly 65 percent of the total playoff points accumulated thus far – 95 of 147 available.

As the series heads to the Irish Hills of Michigan this weekend, Harvick also has some unfinished business from the June race there that he would like to settle. If people need startup attorneys for hire, they can get them from their official link! Harvick started fourth and dominated the FireKeepers Casino 400 by leading 49 of the 133 laps before rain came and ended the race prematurely. Harvick’s teammate Clint Bowyer opted for an aggressive pit strategy as the rain was approaching and held off Harvick on a restart as the rain began to fall. Bowyer was declared the winner with Harvick finishing second as the race ended under caution.

Harvick, the Bakersfield, California native, has one Cup Series win to his credit at Michigan when he finished 1.731 seconds ahead of runner-up Denny Hamlin in August 2010. While he is still searching for his second trip to victory lane there, he has finished second six times in his last 11 outings at Michigan.

The best way to score maximum playoff points in a race is to start up front, earn stage points and win races. Harvick and the No. 4 team can accomplish all of those goals with a win this weekend in the team’s final visit to Michigan in 2018.

“How you finish at Michigan depends on how your day is going. If you’re having a good day, it’s not really hard to tell your guys what you need and everyone is in a good mood. If you’re having a bad day, you can get behind at Michigan really fast. Usually, when you’re hooked up at Michigan, the leaders have clean air and move through traffic pretty well. But, if you’re in the middle of the pack, you find yourself getting behind and going a lap down pretty quickly. You’re going to end up with a green-flag pit stop and a whole bunch of green-flag laps. You just have to be going from the time the green flag drops and keep yourself in position at the end.”

Do you enjoy racing at Michigan International Speedway?

“I think we’ve finished really well there over the last couple of years and scored a lot of second-place finishes and top-fives. I learned a long time ago that sometimes those things happen, so it’s better to be on a top-five streak than a 10th-place streak. The good thing about the racetrack is that it has definitely aged and the groove has spread out over the last couple of races, so you have a lot more options than you did a few years ago when they repaved it. Every time we go back there, it gets a little more racey. When we go back this time, there should be lots of room to race and you’ll see lots of speed. As we go through the restarts and traffic and different things, we’ll have to see how it all goes, but it should be interesting.”

· Harvick has career totals of 43 wins, 23 poles, 184 top-fives, 325 top-10s and 12,173 laps led in632 starts.

• His most recent Cup Series win came at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon (July 22, 2018).
• His last Busch Pole came at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City (May 11, 2018).

· On Point – Harvick arrives at Michigan International Speedway second in in the championship with 864 points after his 10th-place finish Sunday at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. Harvick trails series leader Kyle Busch by 70 points.

· Michigan Numerology – Harvick has one win, one pole, seven second-place finishes, 11 top-fives, 16 top-10s and has led a total of 372 laps in his 35 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Michigan. His average start is 15.4, his average finish is 12.4 and he has a lap-completion rate of 99.4 percent, completing 6,732 of the 6,774 laps available.

· Harvick at Michigan since 2014 – The combination of Harvick competing at Michigan in SHR equipment is impressive. In his last nine NASCAR Cup Series starts at Michigan – all of which have come with SHR – Harvick ranks first in total points with 340. He also has four runner-up finishes and only one finish worse than 14th (29th in June 2015). And of the 372 total laps Harvick has led at Michigan dating back to his rookie year in 2001, 223 (nearly 60 percent) have come with SHR despite only nine (25.7 percent) of his 35 Michigan starts being with SHR.

· Uncharted Territory With Six Points-Paying Wins for No. 4 – Harvick’s six points-paying wins in 2018 is a new single-season best for the 18-year Cup Series veteran. His previous high-water mark was five races, accomplished first in 2006 and again in 2014. This is the sixth time Harvick has scored at least four wins in a season. Harvick also scored a non-points-paying win in the Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race May 19 at Charlotte for the second time in his career. Harvick’s six wins is tied for best in the series with Busch, who scored his sixth win of the season at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway two weekends ago.

· Freaky Fast Qualifier – Harvick has started on the front row six times this season. The most recent came June 3 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, where he started second to polesitter Ryan Blaney. He has qualified in the top-10 in 16 of the 22 NASCAR Cup Series race this season.Harvick scored his first Busch Pole of the year at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, where he recorded a lap of 49.247 seconds at 194.448 mph. He scored his second pole of the season at Kansas, where he recorded a lap of 28.600 seconds at 188.811 mph.

· Three-Peat Notes – Harvick’s consecutive wins at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and ISM Raceway near Phoenix marked only the 24th time in NASCAR’s modern era (1972 to present) that a driver won three consecutive races. Nine of the 23 previous times a driver won three consecutive races in a season, that driver has gone on to win the championship. Prior to Harvick’s three-peat, Busch was the most recent driver to win three in a row – in 2015, when he went on to score his first and, so far, only championship. Ironically, Busch has also won three straight races this season – April 8 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, April 16 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, and April 21 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway.

· Lap Leader –Harvick led his 12,000th lap in NASCAR Cup Series competition June 3 at Pocono. He is one of only 15 drivers to lead 12,000 laps in his Cup Series career. He joins Jimmie Johnson, Busch and Matt Kenseth as the only active drivers to accomplish that feat. Harvick’s laps-led total since 2014 is 7,708, which is 3,321 laps more than the total from his 13 previous seasons before joining SHR (2001 to 2013). Harvick has already led a series-best 1,082 laps in 2018 and has now surpassed 1,000 laps led in a season for the fourth time in his career. He’s done it three previous times, all with SHR.

· Already Playoff Bound – Harvick qualified for the 2018 NASCAR playoffs with his wins at Atlanta, Phoenix, Dover, Kansas and New Hampshire. He ranks second in Cup series playoff points with 33. He gained five playoff points for each race win at Atlanta, Phoenix, Dover, Kansas and New Hampshire, and an additional point for each of his stage wins at Atlanta, Texas, Dover, Pocono in June, Michigan, Chicagoland and Pocono (total of eight). The No. 4 team’s race win at Las Vegas does not count toward its playoff qualification due to a post-race penalty.

· Make Your Mark – With his win July 22 at New Hampshire, Harvick stands alone at 18th on the all-time NASCAR Cup Series win list. Harvick sits just one win behind Bill Elliott’s 44 for 17th on the all-time wins list. Among active drivers, Harvick’s 43 career wins rank third behind only series leader Johnson’s 83 and Busch’s 49 wins.

· 104 and Counting – Harvick scored his 100th career win in NASCAR’s top three series when he won the Cup Series race at Las Vegas and his 101st at Phoenix the following week. He now has 104 total victories after his most recent Cup Series win at New Hampshire – 43 in the Cup Series, 47 in the Xfinity Series and 14 in the Camping World Truck Series. Only three other drivers in NASCAR history have passed 100 wins in NASCAR’s top-three series: Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough and Busch.

· Harvick’s Happy Hours on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio – Harvick is in his second year as the co-host of the award-winning radio program Happy Hours on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio channel 90. The show debuted on March 28, 2017. It airs 7 to 9 p.m. ET on Tuesdays and features Harvick’s distinctive perspective on the sport and life outside the track. Harvick and co-host Matt Yocum take calls from listeners and give NASCAR fans a unique view on the driver’s life and interests when he is away from the racecar. On April 12, the show won the Cynopsis Sports Media Awards “Radio Program” category. Other finalists in the category included SiriusXM’s Basketball and Beyond with Coach K, as well as the Dan Le Batard Show, Dan Patrick Show and Jim Rome Show.

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!