On the third Green-White-Checker restart, Harvick pushed McMurray clear of the field by a few hundred feet. As the pair raced for the finish line locked nose to tail, Harvick slid up a foot, then dropped down towards the yellow line, upsetting McMurray’s car for a fraction of a second.
At 190 mph, a fraction of a second was enough time for Harvick to push his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet past McMurray.
Though McMurray forced Harvick down below the yellow line marking the edge of the racing area, Harvick was already a nose ahead, and he held the lead just long enough to win the race.
“We made a plan before the race and I’m telling you, every piece of the plane played out exactly how we wanted to play it,” Harvick said at the post -race press conference on NASCAR.com.
“We put four tires on the car when we wanted to, we pitted when we wanted to and we stayed out of the pack when we wanted to, until it was time. Coming into the last lap, that’s exactly how we planned it out on paper.
He told FOX TV, “Our sponsor’s leaving us, and the best part about it is that they can leave while we’re winning. That’s the best part of the whole thing.”
Shell/Pennzoil announced earlier in the week that they would no longer sponsor RCR. The win, the first for the team since 2008, will certainly help the team land a replacement.
Jamie McMurray was trying to win his third restrictor-plate race in a row, something only the legendary Dale Earnhardt ever managed to do. McMurray guessed wrong as to which way Harvick would go and that was the race.
“You really only get one direction to go,” Jamie McMurray said. “I thought that I was low enough that he couldn’t get underneath me.
“When he swerved his car to the left it pulled my car around as soon as I realized he got underneath me I was more concerned with just side-drafting him to the start-finish line.”
In the post race press conference, Kevin Harvick described his winning maneuver in greater detail.
“It was all about timing and the timing worked out exactly how we wanted it to work out. We knew, coming into the tri-oval we needed to be second he moved to the right, I moved to the left and that was it.
“Yesterday in practice you saw a lot of guys practicing that. You have basically one move, as long as you stayed against their bumper, you were able to shoot past them and then as you shot past them it slowed them down and you could stay ahead for several hundred feet until they drew back even.
“It worked out absolutely perfect on the timing side of it.”
Most Competitive Race in NASCAR History
There were more passes for the lead (88) and more different leaders (29) than in any race in NASCAR history. There were five different leaders in the first six laps, and the whole race followed that pattern, as two-car trains would surge ahead of the pack, only to be run down by a different pair.
The race had its share of caution periods, but no really big wreck, the kind for which restrictor–plate tracks are famous. The closest thing to a “Big One” was an eight-car chain reaction on lap 84, and similarly-sized pileups on lap 183 and lap 190.The lap 183 wreck sowed the seeds of controversy which could change the complexion of the rest of the season and the chase.
Jimmie Johnson, who was running in the middle of the pack and dropping back, blocked teammate Jeff Gordon, forcing Gordon all the way onto the apron. As Gordon was fighting to reenter the field, he got tangled up with Scott Speed and Jeff Burton.
The damage Gordon suffered was repairable, but it put him out of contention for the win. He had to struggle just to finish on the lead lap. After the race, Gordon, calmly yet directly expressed his frustration to a FOX-TV reporter.
“The 48 [Johnson] is testing my patience, I can tell you that,” said Gordon. “It takes a lot to make me mad, and I am [mad] right now. When a car’s going that much faster [Gordon had been advancing while Johnson had been dropping back] … I don’t know what it is with me and him right now.”
Discontent at Hendrick Motorsports, which has been winless since early in the season, could be the break the other teams need to end Jimmie Johnson’s charge towards a fifth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.
Right after the restart, Jimmie Johnson ended his own day by cutting off Greg Biffle, who was apparently out of fuel, and spinning both cars off the track.
The accident might have been caused by miscommunication with Johnson’s spotter who said, “Inside clear, inside clear, outside only,” just before Johnson moved to the outside and wrecked. In any case, it was the worst possible finish to a bad day for Johnson.
Johnson holds on to first place in the points by a mere 26 points, with Kevin Harvick right behind him.
Hendrick driver Mark Martin finished fifth by staying clear of all the mayhem and then advancing at the end.
The fourth Hendrick car, the #88 of Dale Earnhardt Jr., put on a good show, running at or near the front for much of the race. He unfortunately got stuck in the wrong lane on the final restart, and ended up 13th, not a bad finish but certainly a disappointment for his fans after running such a strong race.
At the last Talladega race, NASCAR banned bump-drafting in the corners to increase safety. Drivers felt they weren’t sure how much bump-drafting would be allowed, and were worried they might be penalized for normal restrictor-plate driving.
At that race, he drivers circulated slowly for 180 laps in protest. The they cut loose in the final laps and had two enormous accidents, eliminating half the field.
It seems ironic that there would be no “Big One” in this year’s race, when NASCAR told to drivers to “have at it.”
Harvick told the assembled reporters, “It’s a lot easier for us to race when we are not trying to figure out the rules. We just kind of do what we do and everybody’s pretty good at the bump-drafting stuff now.”
| NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship Aaron’s 499 | NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship Points | ||||||||
|
| # | Driver | Car |
|
| Drivers | Points | Gap | |
| 1 | 4 | Kevin Harvick | Chevrolet | 1 | Jimmie Johnson | 1323 | - | ||
| 2 | 21 | Jamie McMurray | Chevrolet | 2 | Kevin Harvick | 1297 | 26 | ||
| 3 | 24 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Chevrolet | 3 | Greg Biffle | 1237 | 86 | ||
| 4 | 11 | Denny Hamlin | Toyota | 4 | Matt Kenseth | 1224 | 99 | ||
| 5 | 10 | Mark Martin | Chevrolet | 5 | Kyle Busch | 1163 | 160 | ||
| 6 | 26 | David Ragan | Ford | 6 | Mark Martin | 1154 | 169 | ||
| 7 | 14 | Clint Bowyer | Chevrolet | 7 | Kurt Busch | 1146 | 177 | ||
| 8 | 9 | Kurt Busch | Dodge | 8 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 1142 | 181 | ||
| 9 | 6 | Kyle Busch | Toyota | 9 | Denny Hamlin | 1138 | 185 | ||
| 10 | 37 | Mike Bliss | Chevrolet | 10 | Jeff Gordon | 1130 | 193 | ||
| 11 | 15 | Carl Edwards | Ford | 11 | Clint Bowyer | 1086 | 237 | ||
| 12 | 17 | Martin Truex Jr. | Toyota | 12 | Jeff Burton | 1082 | 241 | ||
