Harvick prevails in dramatic Richmond race

When the dust settled at Richmond, Ol' Happy Harvick was the only driver smiling.

Kevin Harvick plowed through traffic on the final restart, driving from seventh to Victory Lane in a two-lap overtime sprint to the finish Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway. He did it with one of those head-scratching ''Where did he come from?'' drives in which everyone was just hanging on.

''Just shifted gears, hit the pedal and hoped for the best,'' Harvick said. ''They all went high and I went low. The seas kind of parted there. They didn't get a very good restart, and my car launched.

''I was able to take it three-wide, those guys all drove it in hard, and I was able to get by the next two. I only had one to go by the time I got to the backstretch.''

It was Harvick's first Sprint Cup win of the season - he opened the year with a win in the exhibition Sprint Unlimited at Daytona - and his 20th career victory. It put Chevrolet and Richard Childress Racing in Victory Lane, snapping a two-race winning streak by Joe Gibbs Racing.

''That was vintage Kevin Harvick right there,'' crew chief Gil Martin said.

Juan Pablo Montoya was trying to hold off Harvick for his first win since 2010 when the caution came out with four laps remaining.


''I was like, `Really? Really?''' Montoya said about the caution. He pounded his fist on the steering wheel when the yellow flag waved.

Montoya left the decision to pit or stay out to crew chief Chris Heroy, who gamely tried to calm the driver and convince him he could still win the race. He brought Montoya down pit road, a decision most of the field followed as everyone traded track position for tires.

Both Montoya and Harvick took four tires, which put them sixth and seventh for the final restart. Harvick teammate Jeff Burton was the leader after Burton, Jamie McMurray and AJ Allmendinger stayed on the track.

When the race resumed, the first three cars on old tires couldn't hold off traffic and it created mayhem through the field. Harvick rocketed his way through the pack, dragging Clint Bowyer and Joey Logano with him.

Bowyer wound up second, Logano third and Montoya had to settle for fourth.

Montoya, who is off to a horrific start to the season with six finishes of 20th or worse in the first eight races, was comforted with his first top-10 of the season.

''That is what we needed,'' he said. ''I felt like last week we had a top-five car as well, but not quite a car to win. I think this weekend, we came here and tested, and the guys did an amazing job, and we had a good car all weekend.''

Tony Stewart restarted in fifth, but was bumped out of the way by Kurt Busch and faded to 18th. Stewart angrily traded bumps with Busch on the cooldown lap, even trying to force him into the wall, before the two drivers headed to the garage. Once back at their haulers Stewart and Busch shouted at each other over crew members, with Busch claiming the final two laps ''were a free-for-all.''

''We were hoping to be on the right sequence at the end,'' Busch said. ''Some guys had older tires. Some guys had newer tires. We were in the mixed. A green-white-checkered at the end, it is just chaos. Cars are everywhere. People are beating and banging and shoving each other out of the way. It's pretty wild.''

Bad day for Kenseth after points deduction and fine

This is a big one. Matt Kenseth was penalized 50 points and crew chief Jason Ratcliff was fined $200,000 and suspended six races, among other penalties, after Kenseth's engine failed inspection after his win Sunday at Kansas Speedway
"It is our understanding that one of the eight connecting rods on the engine was ruled too light," Joe Gibbs Racing said in a statement. The team will appeal the penalty.
"The No. 20 car was found to have violated Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4J (any determination by NASCAR officials that the race equipment used in the event does not conform to NASCAR rules); and 20-5.5.3 (E) (Only magnetic steel connecting rods with a minimum weight of 525.0 grams will be permitted; connecting rod failed to meet the minimum connecting rod weight) of the 2013 rule book," NASCAR said in a statement.
In addition to losing 50 points, Kenseth will not receive the three bonus points for the win at the time of the Chase points reset if he makes the Chase. The team was also penalized 50 owner points and the owner's license on the car has been suspended for the next six races, meaning that the car will be ineligible to accrue owner's points. In addition to the fine and suspension, Ratcliff is on NASCAR probation until December 31.
Kenseth started on the pole Sunday and inherited the race lead when a caution flag flew during the race's final pit stop cycle. After sprinting out to a lead on the race's last restart, Kenseth held off Kasey Kahne over the final laps. His pole will also not count towards entry in next year's Sprint Unlimited.
Before the penalty, Kenseth was 8th in the points standings. He's now tied for 14th with Jeff Gordon, 109 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. Because he led the most laps on Sunday, Kenseth received 48 points for the win, so the punishment essentially wipes out the race plus two more points. However, the win will still be noted in the race box score.
Joe Gibbs Racing has won four of the season's eight races. All race-winning engines are inspected and there have been no issues with the first three.
On Tuesday, NASCAR announced that the appeal for the infractions found against the Penske Racing cars at Texas Motor Speedway awould be April 1. The Penske cars were penalized 25 points and had their crew chiefs fined $100,000 and suspended for six races along with other team members. Kenseth may face a similar points penalty, but the fine and crew punishment could be bigger. In 2009, Carl Long was penalized 200 points (under NASCAR's old points system) and fined $200,000 and initially suspended 12 races after his engine was deemed illegal. Long drove for his own team.
Earlier Wednesday, NASCAR announced penalties for Johnny Sauter's Camping World Truck Series team for a fuel cell violation found in pre-race inspection. Sauter, who was the Truck Series points leader, was penalized 25 points and his crew chief Joe Shear was suspended for four races and fined $10,000. Sauter is now 13 points behind teammate Matt Crafton in the points standings.
What do you think about Kenseth's penalty? Was it too severe? Just right? Let us know in the comments.

Kenseth holds off Kahne to win in Kansas

Matt Kenseth likened his victory in the STP 400 to a game of musical chairs-you had to be leading when the music stopped.

If you looked at statistics alone, you'd say that Kenseth dominated Sunday at Kansas Speedway in the eighth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season. After all, Kenseth won the event from the pole and led 163 of the 267 laps.

In reality, Kenseth prevailed in a race of extraordinary strategic complexity, with divergent approaches shuffling and reshuffling the running order until an opportune caution on Lap 218 put Kenseth back in the lead at just the right time.

Nonetheless, it took all of Kenseth's consummate skill to hold off fast-closing Kasey Kahne, who narrowed what had been a lead of more than one second to .151 seconds at the finish. Jimmie Johnson ran third, followed by Martin Truex Jr. and Clint Bowyer.

The victory was Kenseth's second at Kansas, his second of the season and the 26th of his career. The driver of the No. 20 Toyota has won both races at Kansas since the track was repaved last year.

"It was kind of like musical chairs," Kenseth said. "You had to be out front when the music stopped. Our car was very fast in clean air. It was reasonable in dirty air, but it wasn't quite good enough to catch all them guys and pass 'em (in traffic).

"Thankfully, I had a couple of really crazy-good restarts for some reason and made up some ground and got us back in position."

Kahne started 27th, but the speed in his No. 5 Chevrolet SS belied the qualifying effort. Kahne's crew tightened up the handling of his car for the final run, but not quite enough. There was a sense of déjà vu for Kahne, who chased Kenseth to the finish line Mar. 10 at Las Vegas.

"We were very close at the end, battling with Matt," Kahne said. "Felt like Vegas all over again, just kind of felt like really similar to that in how I could catch him but couldn't really do anything once I got close. It made my car a little bit looser. So I tried a few things there, and he kind of blocked those spots and went those directions and gained the speed that I (had), and then we were even again.

"It was tough, but we still had a great race."

Defending Cup champion Brad Keselowski came home sixth, despite sustaining heavy damage to his rear bumper when the field checked up on the first lap.

That damage had far-reaching effects-so much so that it changed the complexion of the race on Lap 218. The rear bumper cover from Keselowski's No. 2 Ford dislodged, causing the eighth caution-right after Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle had made green-flag pit stops.

But since all lead-lap cars came to pit road under the yellow, those four drivers were able to regain the lead lap through wave-arounds. Kenseth led the field to the restart on Lap 225, with Truex beside him and Hendrick teammates Johnson and Kahne on the second row.

Kenseth pulled away after the restart, and Kahne charged into the second spot. On Lap 236, Johnson passed Truex for the third position. That's the order in which they ran to the finish.

With his third-place finish, Johnson opened a 37-point lead in the Cup standings over second-place Kahne, who gained five spots. Johnson is 38 points ahead of Keselowski in third.

Keselowski position in the standings reflects a 25-point penalty levied after the Apr. 13 race at Texas, where NASCAR confiscated the rear axle housings of both Penske Racing cars and subsequently levied penalties on the organization. Penske has appealed, but Keselowski won't regain the 25 points unless the appeal is upheld.

Note: For the third straight race, a driver won from the pole. The last time that happened was 1985 (Bill Elliott at Michigan, Dale Earnhardt at Bristol and Elliott at Darlington).