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February 24, 2012

Top-10 Finish for Harvick, No. 29 Team in Duel 150

Kevin Harvick scored a seventh-place finish in Thursday's first Duel 150 at Daytona International Speedway, earning the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team a 13th-place starting position in Sunday's Daytona 500.

RCR/HHP RCR/HHP

Start – 12th     

Finish – 7th       

Laps Led – 0

Kevin Harvick scored a seventh-place finish in Thursday’s first Duel 150 at Daytona International Speedway, earning the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team a 13th-place starting position in Sunday’s Daytona 500. Harvick started Thursday’s race from the 12th position. He ran as high as second and as low as 13th as he moved around in the pack during the 60-lap qualifying race. He was running in the 10th position when the caution flag first waved at lap eight for a four-car wreck that included his Richard Childress Racing teammate Paul Menard. Harvick radioed to the team that the Budweiser Chevrolet was running hot in the pack so he had tried to back up a bit to get some air in the grille in an effort to help lower the car’s water temperature. The team pitted for four tires and fuel at lap 10 and Harvick brought the Budweiser Chevrolet back in for a final stop two laps later to top off with fuel. For the second half of the race, the leaders ran single file until the caution flag waved again at lap 52. Crew chief Shane Wilson elected for the team to stay out and Harvick restarted in the second position with four laps to go. Harvick planned to draft with Tony Stewart in the final laps, but wasn’t able to hook up with the No. 14 Chevrolet and drifted back several spots trying to find someone else to work with. The caution flag waved on the final lap, freezing the field, and Harvick was credited with a seventh-place finish.

KEVIN HARVICK QUOTE:
“The temperatures are just way too hot; you can’t really race. Everybody is just trying to position themselves for the last lap. The grills are so tight that, at 240 degrees in the pack, you are just sitting there and you can’t really make a move. That’s why everybody was so content to stay single file. I didn’t really know what to do there at the end. Tony (Stewart) was way out ahead of everybody by himself. I thought he was going to back-up and he didn’t back-up. I just backed up too late.”
 

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