VIDEO: Watch the wreck

Harvick’s victory was his third in five races, following back-to-back wins in 2009 and 2010. Though Harvick will leave RCR at the end of the season to drive for Stewart-Haas Racing next year, he said the impending job change is of no consequence on the track.

“I think it’s one of those deals, where, for us, it’s about winning races,” Harvick said in Victory Lane. “The politics and everything are one thing, but when we get to the race track, it’s about sitting in this race car, making it as fast as it will go.”

Harvick may not have had the fastest car — in fact, he thought the Stewart’s Chevy SS and Kenseth’s Camry were slightly better — but he made the critical moves at precisely the right times, particularly when it came to blocking Biffle.

“In the middle segment, I could tell that Biffle was backing up and trying to time what his move was going to be as we got further into the segment,” Harvick said. “So I was working on my timing to kind of back up and block that.

“Those guys (Biffle and Logano) were coming on the outside, and I don’t know if the 14 (Stewart) and the 16 (Biffle) were side-by-side, but I just felt like I needed to move up and block that momentum, and we were able to block two of those moves.”

Biffle said he thought about trying the outside lane entering the final corner but wasn’t sure he had enough room.

“I thought about sticking it in there, and it just didn’t look like it was going to work to me,” Biffle said. “It looked like it would be sparks and parts flying. He shut the door on the top. That’s what Kevin needed to do to win the race. I looked in the mirror and didn’t have anyone pushing me.”

An incident-free 25-lap second segment, won by Harvick over Biffle, set the starting order for the final 20-lap dash for the victory. By the end of the segment both Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr. had lost touch with the 10-car pack ahead of them, but caution between the second and final segments bunched the field for a restart on Lap 56 of 75.

The first segment, on the other hand, featured plenty of action.

On Lap 15, the halfway point, a nine-car incident ruined the winning chances of nearly a third of the field. Stewart turned down across the nose of Marcos Ambrose’s Ford near the apex of Turns 1 and 2. Stewart saved his No, 14 Chevrolet, but drivers behind him checked up, seeing sparks trailing from the rear of Stewart’s car.

The ensuing wreck destroyed the cars of Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin. Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota was nicked in the melee, but he was able to continue, as were Stewart and Ambrose.

In fact, Stewart’s car was fast to enough to take the lead on the final lap of the first segment, and he held it to the finish line. During the planned caution between segments, the 12 remaining cars came to pit road for mandatory four-tire stops — a requirement dictated by a fan vote.

Fans voted to set the starting lineup for the race according to the chronological order in which drivers won their poles. That put 2012 Daytona 500 pole winner Edwards in the top starting spot and Martin, winner of the pole at Phoenix the following week, on the outside of the front row.

Both Edwards and Martin, however, had to drop to the rear for the start, because neither driver practiced his back-up car after a wreck in Friday’s opening Sprint Unlimited practice forced a change of equipment. Accordingly, Kasey Kahne led the field to green, with Biffle beside him.

 

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“The first one, I self-cleared myself," Stewart said. “I thought I had a big enough run I could clear the third place car and obviously just nicked him, so I needed about two more inches.

“Then (in the second segment) when Dale Jr. came down into the middle, and where he was made me really tight. Then I got into him and couldn’t get off him, bounced off him about three times. I made sure our spotter told him what happened.

“I definitely was in a enough interesting spots tonight, for sure and most of them I put myself there."

For all the contact, there was only a small amount of cosmetic damage on the right front of Stewart’s car. And, he said, it didn’t affect the handling or balance of the car at all.

“They are pretty solid race cars, right now, I’m pretty impressed," Stewart said. “It’s like nobody’s missed a beat. It’s almost like it’s not even a new car as far as how comfortable everybody got. It was pretty solid right off the bat. I think if it gets warm it could make this interesting and put it back in our hands again. It’s still a chess match. Still gotta play chess."

And, Stewart conceded, he may need to hone his game just a bit.

His move from Harvick’s bumper to the low lane on the last lap allowed the Fords of Greg Biffle and Joey Logano to get the better of him.

“Tonight’s the reason why I haven’t won the Daytona 500 yet," Stewart said. “I’m not sure where I’ve got to be on the last lap there and what to do. We heard the Fords were ganging up and trying something then I saw the 22 car (Logano) down on the bottom all of a sudden. I went where I thought was the right place to be and we lost two spots with it.

“But I’d rather try something and not have it work then stay and lose a bunch of spots and be more frustrated because I didn’t try something."

The solid finish was a fitting ending to an encouraging day for the Stewart-Haas Racing owner/driver.

Earlier in the day his rookie driver Danica Patrick led the way in practice for Sunday’s Daytona 500 qualifying. He and SHR’s other driver Ryan Newman were also among the quickest eight cars — something not lost on Harvick’s team owner Richard Childress, who declared after the race Saturday, “I think she’ll (Patrick) definitely be the car to beat for the pole."

As Stewart was taking the checkered flag in Saturday’s race, he was already thanking his crew on the radio for the total effort that has gone into Speedweeks.

“I’m really proud of organization to come in a clutch like this after having to build race cars at the last minute," Stewart said. “Three cars in the top-eight in practice today and to have the car we had tonight, I couldn’t be more proud of the effort and the results that showed tonight from it."

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That may be the case come race time, but Friday’s two practice sessions for the race proved to be a test of discipline. Drivers and crew chiefs are still experimenting with the draft and learning the new car. And there was a real balance between being tempted to learn the limits and being conservative enough to save the car.

A 12-car accident during drafting practice at the Daytona Preseason Thunder test last month sent many teams home with totaled cars still unsure of what to expect.

A five-car accident only eight minutes into Friday’s first practice was a firm reminder of what can happen. Fast. However, that crash was a result of simple driver miscalculation, not an issue of learning the new car.

Defending Daytona 500 champion Matt Kenseth’s Toyota clipped Kurt Busch’s Chevrolet and collected three other cars, including Carl Edwards, Mark Martin and Juan Pablo Montoya. Busch, Martin and Edwards will have to use a back-up car for the race.

“I feel bad for my guys, they put so much work into these cars for me to wreck them in practice,’’ Edwards said.

The second session was less dramatic. Only 12 cars went out, mostly doing single car runs, less willing to chance unintended consequence of bump drafting in practice.

Toyota driver Denny Hamlin led the second session, followed by Fords driven by Joey Logano and Greg Biffle. Two-time Sprint Unlimited winner Kevin Harvick recorded the fastest lap of the day at 197.364 mph in his No. 29 Budweiser Chevy in the opening practice.

The defending winner of the event, Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch had the 10th quickest speed but was more pleased he’d avoided any contact.

After prevailing in a thrilling finish to last year’s race — Busch was eighth on a re-start with two laps remaining and nipped Tony Stewart at the finish line by .013-seconds — he has proven that it won’t matter where you start or how good you were in practice.  

“That was a cool race, it was a lot of fun, but I drive the same in every race,’’ Busch said. “You go for all you can every time you get out there on the race track. It’s going to be a learning curve for some of us to figure out what’s going on, to figure out how big of a draft these cars will get on one another and what you do with that.

“It’s certainly different for all of us, having the different rules and everything that’s coming through as we go through the days leading up. It makes it different for us but adds a fan element and that’s kind of cool they have some say in what’s going on. So that’s good.’’

As much as The Sprint Unlimited will be a test run for the Feb. 24 Daytona 500, it’s still a race, and 19 of NASCAR’s best want to win it.

“It is a fun race, just having the format and atmosphere that you get and just going for broke,’’ Kyle Busch said.

 

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