No. 4 wins final practice but faces challenge starting 33rd in race
RELATED: Follow your picks in the Chase Battle Grid Presented by Toyota
MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- A brush with the wall during Friday's Coors Light Pole Qualifying doesn't seem to have sapped the speed from Kevin Harvick's No. 4 Chevrolet. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver's name was back among the front-runners during Saturday's practice -- fifth in the early session, and first in the final -- despite the scuff marks along the right-rear quarter-panel.
The challenge now for the championship hopeful is turning the initial post-qualifying frustration into an uphill drive from the 33rd starting spot Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, site of the opening event for the three-race Eliminator Round as the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup postseason draws to its climax. According to crew chief Rodney Childers, Harvick was able to shut off the angst like a switch.
"All of us were frustrated in the beginning, but 15 minutes after qualifying, you've got to turn things around and move forward, and that's what he did," Childers said Saturday before final Sprint Cup practice. "Last night, we talked till about 10 o'clock maybe, and he's as ready as anyone else on this team."
Childers said the damage to the car was largely cosmetic, and Harvick's Saturday lap times backed up the claim. He said NASCAR officials allowed the team 30 extra minutes for repairs late Friday and early Saturday, and the crew hoped for another extension to re-wrap the scraped side of the car before Sunday's Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
The crew chief took the blame for the uncharacteristic sluggishness in Friday's time trials, saying the timing of his first qualifying attempt set the stage for an off-pace result.
"I basically messed up for qualifying and probably freed the car up too much, but the biggest thing was just sending him out too early and the track wasn't near in the condition it should've been in when it started," Childers said. "Chunks of rubber everywhere, and just a mistake on our part going out early. Once you go out one time, your tires are kind of junk. We went out again and got in the wall a little bit. Overall, the car's in good shape."
Harvick's daunting task on Sunday is to pick his way through the field on NASCAR's tightest layout, but as Childers notes, he's accomplished that trick in the past. Harvick started 36th at Martinsville in the fall of 2010 and stormed to a third-place finish. More recently, Harvick dropped toward the back of the pack here in March while his SHR crew changed a spring; he ultimately rallied for a solid seventh-place run.
While the starting spot deep in the 43-car field isn't ideal for kicking off one of the final stages in the Chase's new format, Childers said it isn't a crippling concern.
"That part, I'm not worried about," Childers said. "He's really good at that part and is used to starting from the back. He's had a lot of practice in his earlier career. It's more the things that you have to worry about with other people, getting caught up in something with somebody else or something on pit road.
"Overall, I think we'll have a good car tomorrow. It's just putting the whole day together, being on damage control all day and just trying to race smart."
MORE:
READ: Latest
|
PLAY: Monitor your Chase Grid Game picks
|
WATCH: Latest
|
FOLLOW LIVE: Get
|
|---|