Kevin Harvick takes Bass Pro Shops NRA 500, complete race results
By Ted Fleming
After 48 laps Saturday night, rain forced a postponement of the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race until Sunday afternoon at 1:00 p.m., but Mother Nature didn’t cooperate delaying the start until for three and a half hours. Despite all the issues with the weather, fans were rewarded for their patience.
Coming out of a caution for rain, Kevin Harvick grabbed the lead at lap 51 and never looked back to capture the weather delayed Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race Sunday afternoon. It was his second win at Bristol and gave his car owner Tony Stewart and Steward-Hass Racing their first ever victory at the Last Great Coliseum.
After taking the checkered flag, Harvick invited Stewart to do burnouts with him as it will be his last race at the track. Stewart said that he would miss Bristol the most when he retires.
“I wanted him to go on a victory lap with me and say goodbye to all the fans one last time here at Bristol., but that was pretty cool doing burnouts with him,” Harvick said in Victory Lane. “We should have won a lot of races this year but we just had things not go our way. We made mistakes, or whatever the case may be. But, to get back into Victory Lane here at Bristol feels really good.” It was his first win since March in Phoenix.
“The funny part is [Harvick] got out of his car, got the flag and then he goes, ‘Get in my car and go to victory lane with me,’” Stewart said. “He said, ‘Just leave your car here’ and I told him that I can’t just leave it here. That’s cool. I’m happy for these guys. This is a hard place to win.”
Stewart had mechanical issues that ruined his day. He would finish 30th.
For the most part the first half of the weather delayed Bass Pro Shops NRA 500 played out cautiously as drivers were trying to figure out where their cars would run best on a green track, but as the laps wound down the usual calamities of short track racing took over.
There was a competition caution at lap 86 and the yellow didn’t come out until 158 as one car hit the wall. At 254 debris caused a third break, and at 308 Kyle Larson took a spin for number four.
It was the next caution that began a litany of crumpled fenders and smashed cars when Kyle Busch, who would lead the race in laps led with 256, had something break in the rear end and started a three car pileup and the wreck-fest was on. It would collect Martin Truex Jr. and Justin Allgaier.
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“I don’t know. It’s a shame,” he said. “The last few times we’ve been here, we’ve had really fast M&M’s Toyota Camrys and we haven’t been able to finish. We’ve been having parts failures here, so something we’ve got to address and fix. I’m really tired of losing races here with parts falling apart, so they’ll hear about it on Tuesday.”
“Well from my point of view we got done in the corner,” said Allgaier. “I was trying to let the leaders go as best I could. We were a couple laps down right there and let them go. The No. 22 (Joey Logano) ducked in front of me getting into (Turn) 1 and I had to jam on the brakes pretty hard. I got really loose and I was just trying to catch it. That is when the spotter was telling me that the No. 18 (Kyle Busch) was spinning and he kept rolling down the hill so at first I committed to go below him because I was already on the bottom and then he was still coming down the hill so I tried to go out around the outside of him and unfortunately I just didn’t make it.
Lap 373 saw Kurt Bush and Brad Keselowski get into each other and it would eventually take out Matt Kenseth, Paul Menard and rookie Ryan Blaney.
“I think I just missed the bottom groove by a few inches, got loose and the wreck was on,” Busch would say. “The way that our car was restarting it felt comfortable, it felt good. That inside with the rosin and the VHT if you don’t hit it exactly right you lose a lot of time. I tried to make up for it and got loose.”
“I didn’t really see what happened except for there was cars wrecking up there and I slowed down as much as the guy in front of me,” said Kenseth. “I couldn’t slow down any less than that or I would hit him. Chase (Elliott) bust out of nowhere, ran me over and 21 (Ryan Blaney) came through there wide open – I still don’t know if he’s lifted yet or not – and finished us off.”
Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano would do battle with just 100 laps to go until Clint Boyer brought out the eighth caution when he smacked the wall twice seemingly caused by a mechanical issue. In the race off pit row, Denny Hamlin advanced 11 spots to take the lead, but Joey Logano had to come back in to get some repair on the front of his car and dropped back to 18th.
Hamlin and Harvick would lead the field to the green flag with 77 to go, however, just ten laps into this run, weather would throw NASCAR another curve ball. Radar did not show any significant rain in the area, but it was raining nonetheless. The red was finally displayed at 445 for the jet-dryers with hopes of getting the remainder of race in.
With 51 to go, Harvick took off with the lead with Austin Dillon in hot pursuit once the race went back green.
One driver that desperately needed a good finish was Chris Buescher. He started the day 31st in the Chase standings and finished fifth to give him a solid 28-point cushion heading into the final three events of the regular season.
Here are the final results of the daytime version of the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race:
1 Kevin Harvick
2 Rickey Stenhouse Jr.
3 Denny Hamlin
4 Austin Dillon
5 Chris Buescher
6 Carl Edwards
7 Jimmie Johnson
8 Jamie McMurray
9 AJ Allmendinger
10 Joey Logano
11 Jeff Gordon
12 Trevor Bayne
13 Kasey Kahne
14 Aric Almirola
15 Chase Elliott
16 Greg Biffle
17 Matt DiBenedetto
18 Brian Scott
19 Michael McDowell
20 Landon Cassill
21 David Ragan
22 Danica Patrick
23 Martin Truex Jr.
24 Kyle Larson
25 Casey Mears
26 Regan Smith
27 Reed Sorenson
28 Ryan Newman
29 Jeffrey Earnhardt
30 Tony Stewart
31 Clint Boyer
32 Paul Menard
33 Brad Keselowski
34 Cole Whitt
35 Ryan Blaney
36 Josh Wise
37 Matt Kenseth
38 Kurt Busch
39 Kyle Busch
40 Justin Allgaier