Heading into the 2011 NASCAR Cup Series season, Kevin Harvick and his No. 29 Richard Childress Racing team rode a high from the previous year.
The 2010 campaign saw the California native rebound in a big way, winning the regular season championship and breaking what ended up being a career-long 115-race winless drought; however, a mediocre performance at Dover in the Chase sunk his title bid and dropped him to third in the final standings.
Armed with new sponsor Budweiser, the 29 team went back to a familiar color palette for their 2011 car, throwing back to Dale Earnhardt by painting the flagship RCR Chevy mostly black.
Harvick’s results through the first four races represented a mixed bag. An early DNF at Daytona and middling run at Las Vegas were coupled by a fourth at Phoenix and a sixth at Bristol, but a late run at his home state track in Fontana helped Happy visit victory lane for the first time in 2011, beating Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch.
As the series headed to Martinsville, the Bud bunch knew that they had an uphill climb ahead of them since Harvick’s best finish to that point at the Paperclip was just a third the previous fall, his lone top-5 at the track.
Interestingly, Harvick figured out the track in a one-off O’Reilly Series race in 2006 as well as two Truck races at the storied facility, but a win in the Cup car managed to elude him.
Rolling off ninth for the race, the black Bud Impala stayed in place for the first 25 laps or so before cratering down the running order all the way to 25th before the first caution flew for David Gilliland losing a tire in turn four on lap 52. The Bud crew gained the 29 a spot on pit road and sent him back out in 24th for the lap 62 restart.
Over the next 40 laps, Harvick picked off drivers ahead as they fell to him, climbing back into the top-20 again by the 100-lap mark. When Dave Blaney’s right-front tire gave out in turn 1 on lap 107, the field dove onto pit lane for service where the Bud bunch failed to gain or lose ground.
Cautions breed cautions as — just a handful of laps later — Michael McDowell’s No. 66 Toyota ran over Marcos Ambrose entering turn 1 to bring out the race’s third caution period. The 29 pitted under this caution as well, but the gamble didn’t pay off as the whole field came back to pit road when Dave Blaney’s right-front tire failed once more on lap 175.
While Johnson, Hamlin, and Harvick’s teammate Clint Bowyer commanded the race, the 29 team languished around 20th for much of this phase. That said, another major player in this race took a gamble on two tires when Dale Earnhardt Jr. — in the midst of a major winless drought — leapfrogged to the front of the field after a caution for Hermie Sadler around lap 200.
For what felt like the first time all day, the Budweiser Chevy marched forward, climbing from 19th to 16th in 10 laps after the restart when Martin Truex Jr.’s brakes failed on his No. 56 Camry, collecting Toyota teammate Kasey Kahne as the cars collided into the turn 3 wall at an immense rate.
A lengthy red flag for wall repairs ensued before the action resumed. It was short-lived though, as Brian Vickers decided to flash the horns of his Red Bull Toyota to the rear of Kurt Busch’s Shell Pennzoil Dodge, causing a multi-car crash in turn 3 involving Bobby Labonte, Joey Logano, and Robby Gordon, among others.
One could argue that Harvick taking a lower line behind Vickers on the entry to turn 3 could have caused such a “misjudgment”, but I’ll let the Internet decide that.
Not long after, sophomore driver Brad Keselowski moved Paul Menard on the entry to turn 1, kicking off another calamity involving Michael McDowell and Casey Mears, taking the race to the halfway point for the next restart.
Kevin dove onto the curb in turn 1 to avoid the crash above him, finding himself part of a second straight caution and suffering some damage to his rear bumper.
(Author’s Note: And for some inexplicable reason, Mike Joy called Jeff Gordon “Big Daddy” when he took the lead from Clint Bowyer on the restart.)
The next run proved troublesome for Harvick as the car went backwards in a hurry, sinking from 16th to 23rd by lap 313. The 29 was the very last car on the lead lap with leader Denny Hamlin nipping at his heels.
Once the pit cycle completed with Harvick’s stop on lap 335, he emerged from the pit lane in 22nd, one lap down and nine spots behind the free pass driver, Regan Smith. With so little time left in the race, it would be nearly impossible to rebound from this setback.
Fortunately for the Fontana winner, Trevor Bayne’s Wood Brothers Ford stalled on track, bringing out the race’s ninth yellow, causing the lead-lap cars to come to the pits. The caution and pitting allowed the RCR Impala to leap up the running order by taking the wavearound, putting them back in the mix.
Coming out of turn 4 around lap 370, the 29 and the 39 made contact with Newman’s left-front tire taking the brunt, leading the Stewart-Haas driver to spin entering turn 3 the following lap.
This penultimate yellow saw Harvick shoot up to 10th for the restart after a right-side tire change, and with 100 laps to go, the 29 loomed large in sixth, his highest running position on speed all day.
With laps ticking by, Larry McReynolds notes that the two highest cars on a strategy that will get to the end are Kevin Harvick in fifth and Dale Jr. in seventh, meaning all the cars standing in their way needed a miracle to go the distance on fuel.
The man recently dubbed “The Closer” by Mike Joy swung by Denny Hamlin on the high side in turn 3, something Joy noted he hadn’t seen all day. He ate into the gap by over a tenth-of-a-second per lap, making up ground on the top-3 of Busch, Johnson, and Gordon.
Harvick made quick work of the 24, using the lapped car of David Reutimann as a pick to snag third with 50 laps to go. When Regan Smith wound up in the turn 2 wall with 34 laps to go, the leaders dove onto pit road for the final time for a fresh set of tires and fuel.
Harvick initially came out third, but Jimmie Johnson sped on pit road, dropping him from second to the end of the longest line for the lap 472 restart. The Bud buggy took the outside of the front row for the final green flag of the day, but the restart was not kind to the 29, shooting him down from second to fifth before falling in line on the bottom.
At the front, Dale Jr. stalked the Pedigree Toyota of Kyle Busch for several circuits before taking the lead with some help from the front bumper on lap 480, looking to end a 98-race winless drought. Despite a simmering rivalry between the two, Kevin and Kyle raced each other clean for second when Harvick moved into second with 13 laps left.
Eating away at the gap lap after lap, Earnhardt’s AMP Energy Chevy jolted loose in turn 4 coming to four laps to go, opening the door for Harvick on corner exit to dive underneath heading into turn 1. The 88 found itself unable to fend off The Closer, letting the 29 scoot by and cruise to his second Cup victory in a row.
With just six laps led in a 500-lap affair, Harvick led just 1.2 percent of the total laps en route to victory, his first Cup triumph at Martinsville and the 16th of his Cup career. The win also gave Harvick wins at the facility in all three NASCAR national series.
(Top Photo Credit: Worcester Telegram and Gazette)
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