{"id":25019,"date":"2019-04-07T18:52:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-07T23:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=25019"},"modified":"2019-04-07T18:58:27","modified_gmt":"2019-04-07T23:58:27","slug":"nascar-sunday-bristol-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/07\/nascar-sunday-bristol-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Sunday Bristol Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kenny Bruce, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Harvick works way back from four laps down to finish 13th<\/b><\/p>\n

BRISTOL, Tenn. \u2013 Kevin Harvick finished 13th in Sunday\u2019s Food City 500 at Bristol and on the lead lap and that\u2019s about an amazing of a comeback as you\u2019re likely to see at Bristol Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

Making up a lap or perhaps two is difficult. Harvick, at one point, was scored four laps in arrears.<\/p>\n

Down. Out. Finished. Done.<\/p>\n

Thanks to an incredibly fast No. 4 Ford Mustang, the 2014 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion was able to race his way back onto the lead lap and into the picture.<\/p>\n

The day certainly didn\u2019t start out well \u2013 the team failed pre-race inspection three times and was penalized before the race had even begun.<\/p>\n

Because of the inspection issues, Harvick dropped from 13th to the rear of the field at the start of the race; one crew member was ejected, the driver had to do a pass through penalty under green once the race began and the team will lose 30 minutes of practice time at the next points event.<\/p>\n

His first break came when he hit pit road after the green flag \u2013 a multi-car incident brought out the caution flag and Harvick only lost one lap in the pits.<\/p>\n

But a loose wheel put his No. 4 back on pit road a short time later and Harvick soon found himself multiple laps down.<\/p>\n

He joined the lead-lap cars during the final caution of the race when he was in the free pass position.<\/p>\n

The finish was his worst since a 26th place run at Daytona this year. But it may have been one of the team\u2019s most impressive efforts overall.<\/p>\n

POWER BUT NO STEERING<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

It was a frustrating day for pole winner Chase Elliott as the Hendrick Motorsports driver lost the power steering in his No. 9 Chevrolet barely 20 laps into the race, then was involved in an incident just shy of the halfway point of the 500-lap race.<\/p>\n

Despite the setbacks, he was still contending for a spot in the top 10 when his car hit the wall with less than 70 laps remaining. He led the first 38 laps of the race, finished 11th and on the lead lap, but saw a good day otherwise ruined.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely not what we started out hoping for,\u201d he admitted. \u201cWe got turned late in the race, that was about it. We fell behind from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a great car, even without the power steering.\u201d<\/p>\n

HAMLIN SHOULDERS BLAME<\/b><\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin, the series\u2019 most recent winner heading into the Bristol race weekend, appeared to have made the move of the race when a two-tire call under caution at lap 417 put him out front for the subsequent restart.<\/p>\n

The lead was short-lived. Hamlin was penalized for speeding on pit road, something that\u2019s been the Joe Gibbs Racing driver\u2019s Achilles heel, and forced to give up the valuable track position.<\/p>\n

He did manage to rally and finish fifth, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cI screwed up our strategy on pit lane,\u201d Hamlin admitted. \u201cWe\u2019ll get it cleaned up. Just got to work through all the kinks and clean stuff up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have a race-winning car. Top-five finish with a car that probably shouldn\u2019t have been there is a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin won the season-opening Daytona 500 as well as last weekend\u2019s O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. The TMS win came after he rallied from a, you guessed it, pit road speeding penalty.<\/p>\n

MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR BOWYER<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Clint Bowyer led five times for 24 laps and had one of the best long-run cars in the field Sunday. But contact with Joey Logano on lap 432 resulted in a flat tire for the Stewart-Haas driver and put the team in catch-up mode for the remainder of the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was racing me pretty hard,\u201d Bowyer said of Logano. \u201c\u2026 We just barely touched, and it must have cut the valve stem out of it or something and hit it just right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowyer managed a seventh-place finish in spite of the setback.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy strong suit, just like last week, was long runs,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just slowly kept picking them away. You could see that on restarts. I couldn\u2019t take off worth a damn, but I could really come on strong on the big end of a run.\u201d<\/p>\n

PENSKE STABLE SETS PACE<\/b><\/p>\n

The cars of Team Penske teammates Logano, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney were among the best for much of the Food City 500 and two of the three \u2013 Logano and Blaney \u2013 finished third and fourth respectively. Combined, the trio led 344 of the race\u2019s 500 laps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing you want is a caution with 15 to 20 (laps) to go at Bristol and you\u2019re the leader because you know everyone is going to make their decision based off what you do,\u201d said Logano, who found himself in exactly that predicament. \u201cIf you stay out, you\u2019ve got to expect half the field is going to pit, maybe more. If you come in, five or six stayed (out), so it\u2019s just part of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keselowski appeared to be in line for a shot at the win as well, but confusion when the field was reset for the final restart left the former series champion mired in a three-wide situation coming to the green.<\/p>\n

He was eventually issued a pass-through penalty and finished 18th.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody could figure out the lineup,\u201d Keselowski said. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t enough communication and it was just a tough deal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kenny Bruce, NASCAR Wire Service   Harvick works way back from four laps down to finish 13th BRISTOL, Tenn. \u2013 Kevin Harvick finished 13th in Sunday\u2019s Food City 500 at Bristol and on the lead lap and that\u2019s about an amazing of a comeback as you\u2019re likely to see at Bristol Motor Speedway. Making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":24991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[177,579,16],"class_list":["post-25019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-bristol-motor-speedway","tag-food-city-500","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mencs_bms_dwstart_040719.jpg?fit=5120%2C3414&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6vx","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25020,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25019\/revisions\/25020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}