 | | Kevin Harvick led both of Saturday's practices for Sunday's Sylvania 300. |
By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
September 16, 2006
02:40 PM EDT (18:40 GMT)
LOUDON, N.H. -- The Kevin Harvick-Richard Childress Racing steamroller continued to roll on Saturday at New Hampshire International Speedway, as Harvick ran a moderate number of laps while pacing both pre-race practice sessions for Sunday's Sylvania 300. Harvick's crew chief Todd Berrier said a test last week at the Milwaukee Mile -- another flat mile oval -- was critical in sticking with a brand-new car for Sunday's opening race in the third Chase for the Nextel Cup. "Right now it's the best car we've ever had for New Hampshire," Berrier said following Happy Hour. "We're really happy with it -- but we've been happy with it ever since we unloaded. "Us and the 31 [RCR teammate Jeff Burton] went to Milwaukee and tested and we haven't really deviated much from that and I've been happy with it thus far. I was wanting to bring back the car we ran last weekend [and won with at Richmond], but then I said we had to stick with the plan that got us here -- and that was the car we tested at Milwaukee." Harvick qualified fifth at Richmond and won for the third time this season. He won his first pole in a year on Friday. "We've been good here a lot, but this car has been really good since we unloaded it and it was good at Milwaukee when we tested," Harvick said. "It's a brand new car and obviously it's been good in qualifying and practice -- now we'll have to hope it's just as good tomorrow." In two practices Saturday, Chase contenders were equally sprinkled through the top 10 with non-Chase drivers. In the first 50-minute session, Harvick ran fewer than half as many laps as second-best Tony Stewart, 19 to 46, with his fastest in 29.359 seconds, an average speed of 129.732 mph. Burton, who shared the Milwaukee test and who owns four career victories at NHIS, was third-best in the first session, ahead of former winners Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch. In the 45-minute Happy Hour, Harvick bumped his lap production up to 28 circuits and was still the best of 43 cars that practiced. As the conditions warmed to something that should be similar to what the field faces Sunday afternoon, Harvick's best lap was in 29.461 seconds, 129.283 mph. "This morning was somewhat a case of feeling it out and getting yourself somewhat in the ballpark," Harvick said. "[Happy Hour] was a true test of what it's going to be like tomorrow, so we feel good about it [because] we made some good changes." Rookie Reed Sorenson, who was sixth in the first practice as he tries to make up for a 24th-place finish in July, was second. "I think we've got a top-five car and if we can get it a little better maybe get it good enough where we can win," Sorenson said. "We didn't run where we finished [because] we ran out of gas. I think we spent 175 laps in the top five [but] it's one of those deals where we didn't have the right fuel mileage in it." Sorenson said that, on the flip side of Harvick's qualifying on the pole and dominating practice, he said his own 31st-place starting spot might not keep him from contending. "Some of the best cars that I've had all year I've started way in the back," Sorenson said. "The year Matt Kenseth won the championship I think he probably averaged starting about 35th. "It's not fun to start in the back by any means but I'd rather have a good racecar and start in the back than a bad racecar and start in the front -- that's for sure." Stewart was third, ahead of a couple of Chase contenders: Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson. Harvick said that from what he saw in the two practices, Martin, Sorenson and Johnson were among the most competitive cars in the field. "There were several good cars, so we'll have to put ourselves in position the last 100 laps of the race to win," Harvick said. "Our pit stall should be a good spot for us, and hopefully we should be able to put that to good advantage." However, Berrier said his team had to be concerned not to get too far off-track in the course of 300 laps on Sunday. "Absolutely," he said. "It's up to us to stay on top of it and to not say it's going to be OK -- because it's not going to be OK if we don't work on the car through the race and keep it freed up." To that end, Berrier said his crew did a good bit of experimenting during practice. "There were some things that we knew would be some options we had during the race, and we did some of them to make sure that when we did them tomorrow that they would go in the direction they were supposed to go," Berrier said. "Nowadays you don't ever know what to expect from one week to the next about the way the car reacts to changes, so we did that and we feel like we've got plenty of room in there to adjust, depending on it going tight -- and I'm sure it will." The two sessions were only halted once, for a debris caution early in the first practice. | 
