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So it was understandable when Harvick emerged from his hauler that he wasn't in a talking mood.
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"Ran out of ... gas," Harvick said as he stormed away to his motorcoach.
That pretty much sums it up.
Later, Harvick relayed a statement via his public-relations representative.
"We all thought we had the pit strategy worked to perfection," Harvick said. "Before we came in that last time, we took a gas-and-go that we thought would make up for about six laps that we thought we'd be short. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way for some reason."
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| Kevin Harvick leads Tony Stewart. Credit: Autostock |
The bigger question was, why? Crew chief Todd Berrier and the rest of the Richard Childress Racing crew didn't know the answer. By their calculations, Harvick should have made it to the checkered flag on lap 267 with five or six laps to spare.
"It shouldn't even have been close, especially with all the caution laps," Berrier said.
Berrier said Harvick last pitted on lap 198, and the car was filled to the brim. There were 69 laps to go, but as it turned out only 52 were run under yellow, which should have extended the mileage.
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"We had a half a catch can full of gas, so we knew it got full," Berrier said. "The mileage picked way up the last time when we pitted on lap 198. It showed we could go to like 272 or 273 - plus all those cautions. We didn't even think it was even close, but that's what we get for thinking, I guess."
Berrier didn't speculate what went wrong.
"I guess it's misjudgment, that's all you can say," Berrier said. "Out of gas is out of gas. We'll have to go back, run all the numbers and see what the average is for the whole race. We'll go back and adjust from there for the next time when we start over."
Harvick, who led three times for 46 laps, was in danger of being put a lap down by Jimmie Johnson when Dale Earnhardt Jr. backed into the wall on lap 209. Berrier kept Harvick on the track under the yellow, moving him near the top of the leaderboard.
From there, Harvick chased Newman, stalking lap after lap. But as the race wound down, Newman began in inch away.
"The car started out loose and then got tight toward the end of each run," Harvick said. "I couldn't get up to him because the car was just too tight off the corners."
Harvick had settled comfortably into second ... until the engine sputtered with two laps to go.
"We thought we were going to have a points day," Berrier said. "Finishing second would have been a lot better than finish 17th. Ideally, we wanted to do better, but we ended up where we ended up. You can't turn back time."
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