In a finish, where fuel was in question, Kevin Harvick had enough in the tank to nab his second win of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. For Harvick, it was all about hitting his marks and not worrying about how many gallons — or fractions of a gallon — were left in the tank.
“Well, for me I wasn’t really having to save fuel, and I felt like the key to winning the race was getting around [Brad Keselowski],” Harvick explained. “I felt like in clean air he was going to be the hardest one to pass. I felt like [Joey Logano] fell off as the runs went and it didn’t seem like his car was going to be as good, and my car was still handling really well, top, bottom and middle. I could run anywhere on the racetrack, and I felt like his was a little more line sensitive as to where he needed to run on the racetrack. They told me I was one or two laps to the good, and when I got the lead and got a good enough distance, then I tried to start managing the throttle. It’s a lot easier to manage that gap than it is to try to manage passing and saving. Yeah, we were able to do some burnouts and drive it back to Victory Lane, so we had plenty of gas.”
While Harvick tasted the spoils of victory, many others including Chris Buescher, Kurt Busch and Ryan Blaney did not have the fuel to make it to the finish.
Following Harvick to the finish line was Denny Hamlin.
Kyle Larson came home third, while Martin Truex Jr. (who won Stage 1) and Daniel Suarez rounded out the top-five finishers.
Kyle Busch, who won Stage 2, finished sixth, Ryan Preece ended up seventh, William Byron came home eighth, Chase Elliott was ninth and Alex Bowman got a top-10 finish as well.
Ty DIllon, surprised with a solid 11th-place effort. And Ryan Newman bolstered his Playoff hopes with a solid 12th-place finish. This comes on a day where two of his competitors for the final playoff berth — Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer — had severe troubles as they finished 34th and 37th respectively.
Post-Race Stat Pack:
