August 14, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Kevin Harvick establishes contender status with second straight win

RICHMOND, Va.—With his second win in as many weeks, Kevin Harvick is making a statement before the Cup Playoffs.

While no other driver had established themselves as the clear-cut favorite in 2022, Harvick’s Richmond Raceway victory might change that sentiment.

After ending a 65-race drought last weekend at Michigan International Speedway, the Closer executed a near- flawless attack in the final stage to win the Federated Auto Parts 400.

“It's like I said last week, the cars have been running good week in and week out,” Harvick said. “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.”

Harvick came from 16th after the first stage to fourth in Stage 2. Although Joey Logano had the dominant car while the sun was out—and led a race-high 222 laps—as the clouds rolled in and the track changed Harvick took advantage of the conditions. He caught the No. 22 Ford on Lap 333 and then passed Logano at the line one lap later.

Although Harvick relinquished the point to Denny Hamlin on Lap 341 for his final pit stop, the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford cycled back to the lead 12 laps later then led the final 48 circuits for his fourth win at Richmond and the 60th Cup victory of his career—tied with Kyle Busch for the most among active drivers.

Christopher Bell, who came to the pits 12 laps after Harvick, passed Chris Buescher for second with five laps remaining and cut the No. 4 car’s lead to 0.441-seconds at the finish.

“I got held up pretty bad at the beginning of the run by a couple of slower cars and that was ultimately the difference when you get beat by a couple of car lengths,” Bell said. “Just really fun and really fun race when you have different strategies and you have guys coming and going. I love whenever the races stay green and you’re able to play your cards a little bit different.

“Really proud of everyone on this 20 crew to be able to come back from how we started. Very tough weekend for us. We didn’t practice very well and we didn’t qualify very well. And the guys did a really good job getting this Rheem Camry up front and where we needed to be at the end.”

Buescher worked his way up to seventh at the end of Stage 2 on Lap 231. By Lap 275, the No. 17 Ford was running third behind Logano and Harvick. Buescher was a contender in the closing laps, but after battling Harvick and Logano, his car faded.

“Really proud of everybody,” Buescher said. “Just burned the rear tires up. Ultimately that's on me. Lap 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.”

Hamlin finished fourth but gave up another potential win on pit road. Although he and Bell pitted together on Lap 352, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew stumbled again.

“We dropped the jack on the left side,” Hamlin said. “We didn’t have the tire off of it yet. Our last stop was four-to-five seconds too long and we lost by 3.8 seconds.”

Chase Elliott finished fifth followed by Logano, Martin Truex Jr., Aric Almirola, Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney.

Ross Chastain won the first stage. When he attempted to block Hamlin on the Lap 77 restart, both drivers nearly lost it entering Turn 2. Fast forward to the start of the final stage on Lap 240, and Chastain ran into Kyle Busch entering Turn 4 to trigger the fourth caution and nearly took out Truex in the process. Erik Jones and Noah Gragson were collected in the melee.

Kyle Larson won the lead in the pits, but Logano retook the lead on Lap 243 with Harvick and Blaney in tow. Truex restarted 12th. While Blaney was stronger when the sun was out, Truex overtook the No. 12 Ford with 70 laps remaining.

“I just kind of lost some grip,” said Blaney. “I didn’t have the extra security. I didn’t have the turn and some of the guys found that. Overall, not a bad day, decent stage points. We’ll go on to Watkins Glen.”

Blaney finished one position behind Truex, but his stage points increased his advantage over the No. 19 Toyota to 26 points after his seven-point gain on Sunday.

Perhaps the most bizarre incident occurred on Lap 304 when Chase Briscoe came to pits and left with his car on fire. Although the team thought the fire was out, Briscoe drove for several laps with the rocker box on fire before returning to the pits to extinguish the flames. Briscoe, who had run in the top five, dropped to 27th. He finished 23rd.

While there has yet to be a dominant team taking charge this season, Harvick is attempting to change that narrative.

“We're just going to keep doing the things that we're doing,” Harvick said. “I think we just have to keep an open mind about things and keep progressing and keep understanding the car, understanding what we could have done better today, understanding what we could have done better in qualifying yesterday and doing the same thing over and over.”

On Sunday, the top 10 drivers in the Playoff grid looked themselves into the postseason. Elliott currently leads Blaney in the Cup standings by 116 with two races remaining in the regular season.