Kevin Harvick Dominates Atlanta NASCAR Cup Race

Kevin Harvick celebrates in Victory Lane at Atlanta

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After five years of frustration, Kevin Harvick was determined not to let his second-career Atlanta Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory slip through his fingers again.

In dominating fashion, Harvick blew away the field on Sunday’s rain-delayed Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway to secure his first win of the season and earn a slot in the Cup Series playoffs.

Brad Keselowski was second, followed by Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex, Jr.

Harvick’s second Atlanta victory came almost 17 years to the day that he scored his first-career Cup Series victory in just his third series start after he was tabbed to take over the famous Goodwrench Chevrolet following the death of Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500.

“That was the first win in my career and to be able to do that and pay tribute to Dale was pretty cool. I've been waiting a long time to do that," said Harvick. “We've had so many days where we could do that here….and for five years it's been so fast at this particular race track and a lot of other ones. I love racing here and it's good to be back in Victory Lane finally. It took a while."

Harvick led a race-high 181 laps and won the opening 85-lap stage, and rallied from a disastrous pit stop at the end of the first stage to collect his 38^th-career Cup Series win.

Sunday’s victory ended five years of frustration at Atlanta for Harvick after leading the most laps in his last five Atlanta starts without a win, including this same race a year ago where he lost the race after being penalized for speeding on the final pit stop with 14 laps to go.

Harvick led a race-high 181 laps on Sunday

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"We've had five cars that could have done this, the same exact thing that we did tonight and pretty much did, just different situations didn't allow us to drive it to Victory Lane," said Harvick. "Just really happy to come back to Victory Lane. It's been a long time since I've been able to drive into Victory Lane here on Sunday

"For me, to be able to kind of do that celebration again, very similar to what we did in 2001, I've been waiting a long time, because 2001 was very confusing. It was my first win and don't feel like I remember really anything about it because it was just such a really confusing time in my life. So it felt good to pay tribute to that and park it in Victory Lane with a smile on my face and watch everybody smile with me."

Harvick started third in the event, which started an hour and a half late due to rain and continued under threatening skies foe the entire race. Within 20 laps, Harvick had raced his way past polesitter Kyle Busch to take the lead for the first time and led all but one lap for the rest of the segment to take the green-checkered flag over his Bowyer, Keselowski, Truex, Jr. and Almirola.

During the ensuing pit stop, Harvick’s crew experience a problem with the new NASCAR-issued air guns and Harvick fell all the way to 19^th after having to come back to pit road to get the lugnuts tightened.

The start of the second stage saw Harvick’s teammate Kurt Busch power past Keselowski for the lead, but Harvick came through the field like he was shot out of a canon – moving up 19 spots in just 30 laps to retake the lead on lap 126.

With 10 laps left to go in the second stage, Jimmie Johnson smacked the wall after blowing a tire, bringing the field to pit road. Keselowski would win the race out of the pits to restart as the leader and held on to win the second segment over Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Logano and Harvick

With the race now “official" in the event of more rain, a few teams gambled with the weather – opting for a two-pit stop strategy in hopes that the rain showers that had held off all afternoon would arrive and bring about an early end to the race. Hamlin and Logano – and later, Chase Elliott – opted to stay out after the first round of green flag stops on lap 213.

Over the remaining 100 laps, Harvick and Hamlin would trade the lead as one would pick up the lead as the other pitted off-cycle from each other.

The final caution with 27 laps to go for Trevor Bayne threw all the strategies out the window and race instead became a sprint to the finish.

Harvick was first off pit road on the ensuing pit stops and jumped back out in front of the field on the final restart on lap 303.

Once out in front, Harvick proved to be untouchable, and cruised to the finish by 2.7 seconds over Keselowski.

Brad Keselowski

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“Nobody had anything for Kevin (Harvick) today. Not that I'm aware of," said Keselowski. “Shoot, I think we all threw everything we had at him. He drove a great race and he had a really fast car, and that's a potent combination. If he hadn't had the pit road issue today, he probably would have led almost 300-some laps.

"We were good, but we just weren't as good as Kevin (Harvick) was. We had a strong race car, but just couldn't quite find that last little bit of speed we needed."

Hamlin’s strategy didn’t pan out with a win, but he still managed his fourth Atlanta top-five finish.

“It's clear the Fords have an unfair advantage," Hamlin joked. “You know, it kind of played out the way we thought it would. We weren't very good in the short run, really good in the long run, so we obviously mixed up our strategy there to try to do something different, and it played out for us. Kind of didn't matter whether a caution came out or not, it kind of played out for us, whether it was going to go green or the caution.

“We ended up about where we should have. Good effort, just got to get a little faster in the short run, and we'll be right there."

Defending series champion Martin Truex, Jr. made a remarkable comeback in Sunday’s race after starting 35^th in the 36-car field after his car failed three times to pass pre-qualifying inspection on Friday and was unable to make a qualifying attempt.

Truex, Jr. cut through the field from the back of the pack to move up to tenth in the first 15 laps of the race and even led a lap in the second stage, eventually ending the night in fifth place.

“We had some issues there that kind of sucked, but I guess we'll have to work through it," said Truex, Jr. “We fought our butts off and did great all day. We fought track position, fought the car going away too much on long runs, but overall it was a decent day and something to work from."

Logano came across the finish line in sixth place, while polesitter Kyle Busch came home seventh ahead of his brother Kurt Busch. Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott rounded out the top ten.

Logano moved past Ryan Blaney to take over the Cup Series points lead by six points. Hamlin sits third in points, followed by Harvick and Bowyer.

RACE RESULTS