CONCORD, N.C. — With 10 laps remaining in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, Richard Childress descended from a team pit box and headed to his condominium overlooking Turn 1 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“I said, ‘I don’t think we’ve got much of a chance to win, so I’m going to beat traffic,’ ” said the owner of Richard Childress Racing. “It’s a good thing. I could see some things going on that I wouldn’t have seen down here.”
Childress had a perfect vantage point to watch Kevin Harvick, the driver of his No. 29 Chevrolet, pull off his latest Sprint Cup stunner. Harvick inherited a victory in NASCAR’s longest race of the season (and the longest in its history at 603 miles because of a two-lap overtime) when Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran out of gas entering the 1.5-mile oval’s final turn.
Harvick led two of 402 laps Sunday and has led a grand total of nine laps in his series-leading three victories this season. He passed Jimmie Johnson on the final lap at Auto Club Speedway, and he also beat Earnhardt last month at Martinsville Speedway by seizing the lead on lap 397 of 400.
It’s led some to dub Harvick “The Closer,” but the Bakersfield, Calif., native says pouncing at checkered flags always was his style.
“I’ve never been a guy that’s led a bunch of laps,” Harvick, 35, said after his 17th career win. “We’ve always been around at the end. I feel like we can take the car to another level and we always have something left.”
Sunday night’s race called for more slow than go as Harvick began conserving gasoline as soon as he made his final stop on lap 345. Though crew chief Gil Martin calculated his car would be a lap and a half short of the scheduled distance, Harvick kept the lead pack in sight while feathering the throttle.
But he wouldn’t have had a shot to win if five-time champion Johnson’s engine hadn’t expired on lap 396, triggering the only caution in the final 52 laps. After a few other contenders peeled off for fuel, Harvick started fifth on the final restart. But then Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski ran out of fuel.
That left only NASCAR’s most popular driver, whose tank went dry on the backstretch.
“We were just fortunate to have enough momentum to carry us to the front straightaway,” said Earnhardt, who coasted to seventh as his winless streak reached 105 races.
Harvick also felt fortunate after complaining loudly on the team radio about the handling of his Impala for much of the race, as he often has at Charlotte. Sunday was his fifth top-10 and second top-five in 21 starts at a track he says frustrates him. His team, though, wasn’t affected by his outbursts.
“Everybody knows who I am,” Harvick said. “They don’t get down on me, and nobody gets down on each other.”
Said Martin: “All these guys have learned the same thing, that we can throw punches and take them pretty easily with each other and nobody gets offended. I don’t know what else you can say about it. It’s working pretty good right now. I like it.”