There’s a reason only 14 drivers in the long rich history of NASCAR have ever reached victory lane in the premiere series of the sport at least 50 times. It’s an exclusive club of the best of the best. Names like Petty (Richard and Lee), Pearson, Gordon, Allison, Waltrip, Johnson (Jimmie and Junior), Yarborough, Earnhardt, Busch, Wallace and Jarrett have done so. Now, they have company – Kevin Harvick.

Harvick, battled for the lead on a late race restart with Alex Bowman but was able to shed him away and cruised to his 50th career NASCAR Cup Series win Sunday afternoon at the Darlington Raceway.

“It doesn’t seem real and I think as you look at Darlington, at the things that happened this weekend, I really thought that it would definitely play into our hand just because our guys are so good at hitting the car off the truck for the most part,” said Harvick. “We put a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of studying, a lot of meetings and just have to thank everybody at the shop who has built all these cars.”

Harvick has won NASCAR’s return race, taking the checkered flag at Darlington Raceway 71 days after the series’ last event. Harvick is the only driver to finish in the top 10 in each of the Cup Series’ five races this season.

“I just want to thank everybody from NASCAR and all the teams for letting us do what we do. I didn’t think it would be that much different if we won the race, but it’s dead silent here,” Harvick said after exiting his car at the start/finish line. “We miss the fans. 

“It’s a pretty big honor to win 50 races in this deal. I just have to thank all my teams guys and everybody for what they’re doing. I have to say hi to DeLana (his wife) and my kids at home – I guess we’ll bring home the trophy.”

 

Bowman though, is a bit stunt to come up just short, but knows that he lost to one of the best in the series.

 

“Not be on the inside is really the only thing,” Bowman said on if he could have done anything differently to beat Harvick there in the end. “I feel like watching it back, I could have been really aggressive and cut the corner into one a little bit and maybe cleared him. I was already pretty aggressive with that.  Maybe I could have acted like I was going to clear myself and got him to lift.  If he doesn’t lift, we both crash.  In three and four I got loose under him.  He did a good job of getting on my door, taking some side force away.

“You’re racing one of the best in the business at one of the most technical, hard racetracks we go to.  Just to have the opportunity to race him hard and clean like that was a lot of fun.”

Harvick, made it look like a Sunday drive in what surely will go down as one of the strangest races in NASCAR history. Masks, social distancing, remote broadcasting and a fan-free speedway were among the most noticeable differences in NASCAR’s return.

NASCAR chose the oldest speedway on the Cup circuit as the safest place to restart its season after eight events were postponed amid the pandemic. NASCAR had been facing a financial collapse if races didn’t resume on national television.

Harvick, led a race-high 159 of 293 laps en route to his first win since last November at Texas.

“It was a lot of fun to race a guy like Kevin at a place like Darlington,” Bowman continued. “It sucks to finish second, but it’s really good to restart the season this way with a strong car off the truck. We just needed a little bit more … and just came up a little bit short.”

Bowman, fresh off his newly signed contract for 2021 said that getting that deal done on Saturday gave him the confidence that it takes to compete for the win on Sunday.

“Yeah, for sure,” the Arizona native said of his deal and confidence it gives him now. “Obviously not having to talk about 2021 any more, just focus on the task at hand, going and contending for a championship is really good.

“Obviously my career has changed significantly since coming over to HMS.  They gave me a big break.  I’m very appreciative for that.  Really enjoying it.  Glad to have that squared away.  Ready to go try to win some more races.”

Kurt Busch charged up to finish third in his No. 1 Chevrolet for his third straight top seven on the season and fourth straight top seven at Darlington.

Chase Elliott was fourth in his No. 9 Chevrolet for his second top five in his last three Darlington starts while Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five in his No. 11 Toyota.

Ryan Newman finished 15th in his first race since suffering a head injury in a last-lap crash in the Daytona 500.

Matt Kenseth, who came out of retirement to replace fired Kyle Larson at Chip Ganassi Racing, was 10th. The 48-year-old Kenseth raced in the Cup Series for the first time since the 2018 season finale. He was the oldest driver in the field.

 

This was the first of 20 races across seven Southern states between now and June 21. Darlington will host two more NASCAR races over the next three days. The first race back was deemed The Real Heroes 400 and was dedicated to health care workers.

 

Here are my main takeaways

Harvick Is At His Best At Darlington

Harvick may be the only driver in NASCAR’s premiere series with a top 10 finish in all five races this season, but Sunday’s victory isn’t too surprising. See, while this was just Harvick’s second trip to victory lane at the Darlington Raceway, he’s been en fuego at the track dubbed “Too Tough To Tame” since joining Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014.

In seven career starts at Darlington with SHR, the California native has yet to finish outside of the top 10. Furthermore, he’s now led 677 laps in those seven starts compared to just 63 circuits up front in 16 previous tries with Richard Childress Racing.

Bowman Is Legit

Fresh off a new contract extension, Alex Bowman proved that he’s a legitimate championship contender so far in 2020. He should have won the second race of the year in Las Vegas if not for a late race caution and a bad pit call to follow. A week later, he led 110 of 200 laps in a dominating victory at Fontana. A week after that, he was 14th in Phoenix. Now, he ran up front literally all race Sunday in Darlington in finishing third in Stage 1, second in Stage 2, led 41 laps en route to a runner-up result to Harvick.

Kurt Busch Strong Again In Darlington

We can never count Kurt Busch out at Darlington. Sunday, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver brought his No. 1 Chevrolet home third for his fourth consecutive top seven finish at the “Lady in Black” and fifth in his last six tries. This was also his third straight top six finish on the season as well.

“I’m the happiest guy in the world, I got to drive 200 mph today, passing cars, felt the energy of the race car and just to be out here and to have a job. I miss the race fans, we didn’t have you here, but I felt you through the (TV) cameras.”

Reddick Quietly Quick

Tyler Reddick won the last two NASCAR Xfinity Series championships. Despite that, most had him three out of three in terms of where he’d finish among the “Big 3” rookies moving up to the NASCAR Cup Series for 2020. Christopher Bell was with Leavine Family Racing but was virtually a fifth Joe Gibbs Racing car. Cole Custer was with Stewart-Haas Racing. Reddick, was with a Richard Childress Racing team that has won just two races since 2014.

Instead, I think we need to rearrange that list.

Reddick, was quietly good in the last race, 70 days ago, at the Phoenix Raceway. Unfortunately, a tire went down on his No. 8 Chevrolet towards the closing laps of the race on March 8 which relegated him to a 33rd place result.

On Sunday at the Darlington Raceway though, the California native was fantastic. Reddick, quickly moved his way up through the field to score stage points in the opening segment — he’d finish 8th. In the second stage, he worked his way up to the top five even. Then, the bad luck struck again.

Kyle Busch scrapped the outside SAFER barrier in the middle of the run during the second stage which caused a sponsorship banner to come loose. The banner got onto the 1.366-mile South Carolina oval in which Denny Hamlin ran over it. The banner was stuck on Hamlin’s front bumper. He used the turbulent air behind Clint Bowyer to pull it off, but it landed on Reddick’s bumper right behind. The banner wrapped around Reddick’s right front brake rotor which caused him to lose the handle of his car. Luckily, a caution came out, unluckily, he had a pit road penalty while making repairs.

His day wasn’t over. They didn’t give up. Reddick, charged back up again inside of the top 10 during the final stage and would come away with a seventh place finish despite having no Cup experience on arguably NASCAR’s hardest track, with the hottest temps of the season to race in and didn’t have the luxury for practice or qualifying prior.

Toyota’s Have Solid Day, Still Lacking In Speed Department

It’s hard to ring the “alarm” bell for an organization that placed three of their four race cars in the top eight of the finishing order in Sunday’s NASCAR race at the Darlington Raceway. But, if you dig a bit deeper, the finger is on the alert button.

Here’s why.

Toyota put three of their four drivers in the Championship 4 a year ago too. They combined to win a NASCAR record 19 of the 36 races run in 2019 including the Daytona 500, Coke 600, Bristol Night Race and the Southern 500. Without much of a change to the aero package in 2020, you would think that they would dominate this season right?

Instead, after five races down, they’re 1-for-5.

Denny Hamlin won the season opening Daytona 500, but the rest of the camp has been quiet ever since. What’s concerning for them though is that they are lacking in terms of overall race pace. If I had to rank the top cars in terms of pure speed, I don’t think I’d have JGR in the top six or seven best.

Kyle Busch wrapped up the west coast swing with two straight top three finishes. Despite that, he warned that he almost fluked into them and that the Toyota camp is really lacking in the speed department so far.

He’s not wrong.

293 laps were run on Sunday and Toyota led exactly none of them. For the season, they’ve combined to lead just 108 laps. 93 of those 108 laps were led in the season opening Daytona 500. The only laps that they’ve led since then was all by Martin Truex Jr. who led one lap in Las Vegas, three in Fontana and 11 in Phoenix.

Also, coming into this weekend, Joe Gibbs Racing had won three of the last four Cup Series races at Darlington including a 1-2 effort last September. They’ve done so with three different drivers too.

On Sunday, they were just pedestrian.

Busch, drew a fourth place starting spot but his car failed inspection prior to the race. So, he had to come from the back instead. He was only 15th and 16th respectively through the first couple of stages. The final stage saw him hang around the top 10 before he had a late unscheduled pit stop. He’d wind up 26th, his worst finish at Darlington in his last 11 tries. Heading into this weekend, he had two top three finishes in his last three Darlington starts and wasn’t worse than 11th in his last 10 tries. He never was a factor on Sunday.

Truex Jr. had some early race damage and fought an ill handling race car. He was 24th in the first stage but found himself near 30th for much of the first 90 laps. After some repairs and adjustments, he pounced. Truex, finished third in the second stage and was there for the win. Then, he thought he had a loose wheel in the second to last stint which caused him to lose some on track spots. He’d stay out on track and finish sixth in his No. 19 Toyota.

Hamlin, was second and ninth in the first two stages and came home fifth. It was his fifth top 10 in his last six Darlington starts including his ninth in the last 11.

Jones, last year’s winner of the Southern 500, was fifth and eighth in his previous two Darlington starts to that, brought his No. 20 Toyota home eighth again.

While it was another solid outing for them, as you can see, they’ve been great in the past at Darlington. They just didn’t dominate either.

Hendrick Shows Speed Is Still There

One of the big questions for the post COVID-19 break was if Hendrick Motorsports’ speed would remain. Following Sunday’s race at the Darlington Raceway, our question was answered with a resounding, yes.

It was a stellar start of Sunday’s race for the organization. While Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick ran 1-2 for the first 39 laps of the race, on the Lap 40 restart, the HMS camp came alive. Jimmie Johnson moved up to second on the first lap back to green while Alex Bowman followed him up to third a lap later. By Lap 45, they were running 1-2 with Bowman getting by Johnson and Keselowski for the top spot and the seven-time champion in Johnson falling in line to second. They’d remain that way until William Byron moved up into third on Lap 55 giving HMS a 1-2-3 running order. Johnson, then passed Bowman for the lead on Lap 81 and was well on his way into winning his first stage of the 2020 season. Unfortunately, Johnson got to greedy in Turn 2 and got into the back of Chris Buescher while trying to lap him on the final lap of Stage 1. Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet would slam the inside wall hard, ending his day with a 38th place result.

Byron, would win the stage while Bowman and Chase Elliott finished second and 10th respectively. Unfortunately, that was the start of problems for HMS. Elliott, was speeding on pit road on the caution under the stage break and would have to restart at the back of the field. Byron, then had a loose wheel and didn’t know it as he lost control of his No. 24 Chevrolet in Turn 3 on Lap 109 and got into the wall as a result. He fell to 34th, three laps down after.

Bowman and Elliott would still carry the banner for the team in giving HMS two cars in the top five at Darlington for the first time since 2014. The speed is there still as we have to wonder what would have happened if Johnson and Byron didn’t have their troubles early.

Second place finisher Bowman says the unique situation of the coronavirus and everyone being shut down is a main reason as to why no one had a chance to catching their speed in the interim.

“Yeah, I felt great the way we started the season,” Bowman said. “Unloading in Las Vegas, I think we saw our racecars were going to be really strong.  To continue that after we got shut down and firing everything back up, to continue the strength that we had means a lot.

“I think it was an interesting time period, right?  Guys couldn’t really be in their shops developing new stuff.  You weren’t allowed to be in the wind tunnel, simulators, all that stuff.  Everybody is still at home working on their notebooks, trying to piece together what they can do to make their racecars better.

“In a sense it didn’t really give people maybe the complete opportunity to catch up, but it at least gave them some opportunity.  I think for everybody at HMS to stay on top of things, improve our racecars, I think we didn’t just come back with what we had in Vegas and Fontana, I think we came back with something better.  We need to keep working on it because everybody around us is constantly getting better, as well.

“It’s really different than how we started the season the last two years.  I feel like our cars, the biggest thing, when we’re off a little bit, we’re not running 20th any more.  If we have a bad run, we fall back to eighth.

“I think that shows a lot about the strength of HMS right now.  We’re just going to keep gaining on it.”

Kenseth Still Has It

Matt Kenseth made it clear when asked this week about coming back to NASCAR for the first time since 2018 — he never said that he was retired. Kenseth, was just forced out of his last couple of Cup Series opportunities.

See, Kenseth was the odd man out of the Joe Gibbs Racing equation in 2017. JGR wasn’t going to cut ties with Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch or Daniel Suarez. They needed to bring Erik Jones over to their camp. With Kenseth a free agent, he was the one left out in the game of musical chairs.

Everyone thought that maybe Kenseth was done. There were no top rides left. The problem was, he may not have had an offer. Then, his old team at Roush Fenway Racing came calling for help. RFR had been down in recent years and needed help in deciding if it was the car or driver or a combo of both.

Kenseth, ran 15 races in 2018 to find out. He made them some what relevant again in wrapping up 2018 with two top seven finishes over the final two races of the year. The team cut ties with the former driver of the No. 6 (Trevor Bayne), kept Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and paired him with Ryan Newman.

Kenseth, was pushed aside again.

Then, Kyle Larson said a racial slur back on April 12 and opened a ride up with Chip Ganassi Racing. In an unexpected move, CGR brought Kenseth in as the replacement.

The first race back though? Kenseth, 48, had to race at arguably NASCAR’s hardest track on the circuit, in near 90 degree temps, without any practice or qualifying. The Wisconsin native had never driven for CGR before, nor worked with crew chief Chad Johnston or his spotter prior to this weekend. On top of that, he’s never raced this car with this racing package before.

Forgive him if he was a little rusty.

Instead, Kenseth was 13th in Stage 1, 12th in Stage 2 and moved to finish 10th in his No. 42 Chevrolet in the end. A top 10 finish in his first race back under those circumstances proves that Kenseth should have never left.

“Here’s the think about Matt Kenseth, he should have never quit,” Harvick says. “He was winning races when he left. He’s going to be an asset to Chip Ganassi Racing and he’s going to be a big part of what they’re building for the future over there. Experience and skill goes a long way in our sport. If you have those two things like Matt does, you’re going to be successful. You don’t just forget how to do that.”

Now that Kenseth has a full race under his belt and will be starting with track position again on Wednesday night, is he a top 10 factor?

Penske Lacks Results

If you remember way back to March, you would have seen that Ryan Blaney has had the quickest race car each race, Joey Logano has won almost half of the races run and Brad Keselowski has three finishes of 11th or better.

But, can that translate well over to Sunday? Their speed was actually lacking for the most part.

Keselowski was great with clean air, but he faded to a 13th place finish in the end. The Michigan native was fifth and first respectively in the two stages and even led 80 laps. But, as the race went on, his No. 2 Ford went away. He does have three top 10 finishes in his last five Darlington starts, but two of his last four were 13th or worse.

Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney were non factors all day. Logano, was 12th and eighth respectively in the two stages but finished 18th for his third finish of 14th or worse in his last four Darlington tries. Blaney, still has failed to score a top 10 at Darlington as he came away 16th on Sunday. He was 19th and 13th respectively in the two stages and has finishes of 30th, 13th, 31st, 15th, 13th and 16th respectively on the “Lady in Black.”

Stenhouse Embarrassed

We waited 70 days between the last race at Phoenix and today’s race in Darlington but for one driver, he will have to wait until Wednesday before turning a high speed lap.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr was collected in a first lap accident in his No. 47 Chevrolet as he would finish last (40th) as a result.

“Not really sure what to say there about our first lap, first corner, a disappointment Stenhouse said. “Pretty embarrassing for myself, our team. My crew guys, I feel awful for them. They put a lot of hard work into getting our cars ready and coming all the way down here to Darlington. I put myself in a bad spot there. The 32 (Corey LaJoie) looked like he had to check up and I put myself on the inside of him. Just put ourselves in a bad spot and ended our race before it ever started. I’m looking forward to getting back here on Wednesday to try and put a better run together, and put this behind us.”

Stenhouse, the Daytona 500 pole winner, has finished 20th or worse in four of the first five races of the season.

Blu Emu Heck Of A Debut In NASCAR

The sixth caution of the day was called to remove a sponsorship sign that came loose when Kyle Busch rubbed against it riding the high line at Darlington.

After Busch hit the Blue-Emu sign, it came loose and a portion of it landed on Denny Hamlin’s car and then Tyler Reddick’s car. NASCAR called caution on Lap 155 to send track workers out to address the loose parts of the sign.

Blue-Emu, if you recall, is the sponsor that fired Bubba Wallace for rage-quitting an iRacing event in which the topical pain reliever was sponsoring the driver.