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JOLIET, Ill. — Kevin Harvick‘s hopes for a strong start to this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs were thwarted Sunday afternoon by a case of unfortunate timing.
Harvick left Chicagoland Speedway with an unsatisfying 20th-place finish in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400, unable to make up a lap lost during the race’s first caution period. Only rookie Chris Buescher in 28th finished worse among the 16-driver postseason field.
The timing was compounded by a penalty to start the race, when NASCAR officials ordered the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Chevrolet to the rear of the field for unapproved body modifications.
Harvick emerged from his car and walked with purpose from pit road toward the drivers’ motorcoach lot, declining to answer questions about the circumstances of his day. He left the Chase opener tied for 13th in the standings, needing to make up ground in the Round of 16’s next two races at New Hampshire and Dover.
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“You start behind in the Chase and that’s what happens,” said Greg Zipadelli, Stewart-Haas Racing‘s vice president of competition. “It was kind of an unusual day as it was, the way the cautions fell. We usually have more, and every time he was in an opportunity to get his lap back, they didn’t. It is what it is. We go on to Loudon, we work harder this week. We’ve had good cars all year, fast cars all year, so there’s no reason to panic.”
Harvick charged mightily from the rear of the field at the initial drop of the green flag, vaulting into the top 10 after just 20 laps around the 1.5-mile track. But he was trapped a lap behind the leader when the race’s first caution flag flew as he made his first pit stop in the 49th of 270 laps. After leaving its pit stall, Harvick’s No. 4 Chevrolet just missed crossing the pit exit line by the narrowest of margins before then-leader Martin Truex Jr. — the eventual race winner — had lapped it.
Though he was in a position to receive the free pass on several occasions, the scarcity of yellow flags — and the accumulation of other lapped cars in the race’s long green-flag stints — the rest of the way kept Harvick from ever landing back on the lead lap.
For the second-straight year, the circumstances leave the 2014 Sprint Cup champion with another hurdle to overcome in the Chase’s opening three-race round. Last season, Harvick and fellow Chevrolet driver Jimmie Johnson made contact after a midrace restart in the Chicagoland opener, leaving Harvick with a crash-related 42nd-place result. After a midpack finish at New Hampshire the following week as the No. 4 car ran dry in the closing laps, Harvick converted in a must-win situation with a dominant victory at Dover.
It’s not another must-win scenario yet, but facing a 23-point deficit to standings leader Truex and having a dozen drivers ahead of him will up the degree of difficulty.
“It is what it is. It’s life — how you deal with it, karma, how you react to it,” Zipadelli said. “Right now, we just, we’re going to go back to work and go to Loudon, a place where a couple of our cars could’ve won the last few races and that’s all we’ve got to do. We’re going to look and see why what happened today and correct that, but overall, the picture is you’ve got to go to Loudon and go over and race your guts out.”