Kevin Harvick Pushes Hot Streak, Wins at Richmond

Kevin Harvick helped his playoff chances last weekend at Michigan, snapping a 65-race winless streak that dated back to September 2020. This weekend, Kevin Harvick solidified himself in the NASCAR Cup Playoffs by going back-to-back and winning for the second race in a row at Richmond Raceway.

This was Harvick’s 60th career Cup Series win, tying him with fellow active driver Kyle Busch for ninth on the all-time wins list. This also marked Harvick’s fourth win at the 0.75-mile short track and his first since 2013. Harvick led twice for a total of 55 laps, passing the sixth-place finisher Joey Logano for the lead on Lap 334, then regaining it from Denny Hamlin on Lap 353 at the end of a cycle of green-flag pit stops.

“It’s like I said last week, the cars have been running good week-in and week-out,” Harvick said in his postrace interview, “and you see that we have a lot better understanding of what’s going on with how we adjusted on the car after the first run and were able to get our car handling a lot better.”

“I think as it got dark, the race track really came to our Mobil 1 Ford Mustang.”

Chris Buescher was able to jump ahead of Joey Logano during green flag pit stops and was able to chase down the leader, Kevin Harvick. However, Buescher was unable to get around the No. 4 Ford Mustang and ended up drifting back to third after being passed by Christopher Bell late in the race.

“Just burned the rear tires up,” said Buescher, who needs to win to punch his ticket to the playoffs. “Ultimately that’s on me. Lapped traffic didn’t do us any favors, either, but ultimately just got to keep the rears under us a little bit better so we can have a little bit better shot there to get after him for the win.”

Christopher Bell was charging with 12-lap fresher tires and got around Buescher with five laps to go. Bell got very close to getting Harvick but ran out of time.

“Well, I knew he was coming, but I forgot to shift down the front straightaway the last time,” Harvick said about Bell catching him. “I was not paying attention, and he got closer than he should have. I made a mistake there a couple laps doing the same thing. I wasn’t shifting on the back, and I was shifting on the front. There was a lot going on, and made a couple mistakes, let him get too close.”

As for Christopher Bell, he was very happy with his result after the race. Bell already has a win on the season, which locks him into the playoffs.

“Really, really proud of Adam Stevens, this entire 20 group,” Bell said. “The Rheem Camry didn’t feel very good at the beginning, and we had our fair share of troubles (including a spin on Lap 250), and the pit crew really came through at the end there with some blazing stops and allowed us to get in front of the 11 (Hamlin), who was on the same strategy as us and get up there and contend.”

For the last spot in the 16-driver playoff field, Ryan Blaney stretched his margin over Martin Truex Jr, despite that Truex finished seventh and Blaney finished 10th. The reason for it being that Blaney earned 11 stage points, but Truex earned none. Blaney now leads Truex by 26 points with two races left in the regular season.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads next to Watkins Glen for the second to last race of the regular season, which will also feature the Cup Series debut of former F1 Champion Kimi Raikkonen.