Harvick pulls away late
to win the Brickyard 400
By DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer



Race Results
Points





AP


INDIANAPOLIS - Kevin Harvick snatched the lead from rookie Jamie McMurray on a late-race restart Sunday and then held on to win the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Harvick, in becoming the first driver to start from the pole and win Winston Cup's annual race at Indy, grabbed the top spot on Lap 145 when he picked the right path through traffic on the pivotal restart.
Harvick went low while McMurray got bottled up behind Dave Blaney's Ford in traffic behind cars that had been trapped on the end of the lead lap by the timing of the caution during what would have been a round of final pit stops.
Harvick's pass came ahead of a multicar wreck on Lap 145 that brought out another yellow. That set up a restart with 10 laps to go, but this time there was no traffic ahead of the leader. Harvick broke clean in his Chevrolet and was never challenged.
Robby Gordon, Harvick's Richard Childress Racing teammate, had been second on the restart. The potential for fireworks was there, since Harvick and Gordon had traded barbs after Gordon passed Harvick on the way back to a caution on the way to a victory at Infineon Raceway.
But Gordon's Chevrolet faded badly over the final 10 laps. It was points leader Matt Kenseth who came on to take second, with McMurray holding off Jeff Gordon for third. Bill Elliott, last year's winner of this race, was fifth. Gordon wound up sixth.
"Congratulations, Kevin," said team owner Richard Childress, who'd won this race with the late Dale Earnhardt in 1995. "You've won the Brickyard 400."
It was Harvick's fourth career victory, his first since Chicagoland Speedway in July of 2003.
"Man, I can't believe this!" Harvick said in victory lane after burning his rear tire off doing celebratory burnouts. "I don't know if I can explain what this means. It's awesome!"
Tony Stewart, an Indiana native for whom victory at Indianapolis has been a lifelong quest, led for 60 laps in a Chevrolet that was dominant for most of the day. But he had to make an extra pit stop for a mismatched set of tires on the caution before the restart that proved pivotal for Harvick and got mired back in traffic. He wound up 12th.
Harvick started from the pole and led the first 17 laps, but Elliott moved around him entering Turn 3 on Lap 18 to take over the top spot.
Two big movers in the early laps were Stewart, who started 15th, and McMurray, who started 22nd. Stewart worked his way up to second by passing Harvick on Lap 22 while McMurray was up to sixth by two laps later.
Stewart's charge to the front was relentless. He got a run on Elliott down the frontstretch and, entering Turn 1 on Lap 26, stormed by on the inside to take the lead.
As soon as Stewart's Chevrolet got out front in the clean air, he took off.
By Lap 31, his lead over Elliott was 5.5 seconds - and growing.
Stewart gave up the top spot on Lap 35 when he made his first green-flag stop. Moments later, a caution came out after Dale Jarrett spun as he tried to get in his pit stall and hit one of his crew members, jackman John Bryan.
As emergency workers tended to Bryan, pit road was closed to those cars that hadn't yet stopped for fuel. Jeff Gordon, who'd inherited the lead during the round of stops, came to pit road anyway because he was about to run out of fuel. Another large group of cars made the same choice the next time by.
Since a car that comes in while pit road is closed is sent to the rear of the longest line of traffic for a restart, many of the cars who'd already stopped before the yellow came back in to top off their fuel tanks once pit road was finally opened.
When the race restarted on Lap 41, Newman and Jimmie Johnson were the leaders but there were several cars in front of them on the tail end of the lead lap. Those cars got a break on Lap 47 when John Andretti's Chevrolet got stacked up in traffic and knocked into the wall after contact from Tony Raines.
Stewart, up to second when the yellow came out, feinted a move to pit road but stayed out. A large group of other cars, though, did stop to top off their fuel tanks - including Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Stewart regained the lead, passing Newman soon after the restart on Lap 51.
Over the next run, those two cars pulled away by more than 10 seconds over third-place Rusty Wallace with a round of green-flag stops approaching.
Newman may have waited too long. When he came in on Lap 81 his Dodge was out of gas and coasted to a stop. That cost him time and, more importantly, track position at a place where that's too valuable to give up.
Stewart stopped the next time by. Kenseth stayed on the track and led a lap before making his stop on Lap 83.
When the pit stop cycle was complete on Lap 87, Stewart was back in the lead by more than 10 seconds over McMurray with Newman nearly 20 seconds back in seventh. McMurray, reaffirming the early promise his car had displayed, began whipsawing into Stewart's cushion. By Lap 100, the rookie driver was only 4.9 seconds back.
Those numbers became irrelevant on Lap 105 when Elliott Sadler's Ford began smoking and, NASCAR feared, dropping oil on the race track. That brought out a yellow flag and the leaders to pit road, and this time a variety of pit strategies shook things up.
Robby Gordon took fuel only and took over the lead. Bobby Labonte took two tires and got second. McMurray got four tires and came out third, while Stewart also got four but was seventh on the restart because his team had an air gun malfunction on its stop.
McMurray made it to the lead for the first time all day on Lap 114 with Kenseth coming with him into second. Stewart, meanwhile, was back in traffic in sixth and more than 3 seconds behind the new leader. By Lap 120 he was up to third, but he was still 4 seconds behind the leader.
As the race moved into its final fourth, the question turned toward pit strategy. Everyone needed one more stop, but who would come when and what would they do when the came?
Newman came in Lap 126 for two tires and fuel. Bobby Labonte did the same thing four laps later. Stewart got two tires and gas on Lap 131 and, unlike the cars that had pitted earlier, managed to stay on the lead lap.
McMurray decided to stop on Lap 133, and when he came back on the track he was still ahead of Stewart. Kenseth, meanwhile, took over the lead and stayed on the track By cutting the number of laps left before stopping, Kenseth was choosing a fuel-only strategy for his final stop.
And then, the yellow flew. There was debris on the backstretch, and that turned things upside down.
McMurray and Harvick, who'd stopped under green, were up front. Kenseth, who came in on the yellow for two tires and gas, got back on the track third with Robby Gordon and Jeff Gordon behind them. And Stewart, who'd stopped under green, came back in under the yellow for left-side tires because his car was pushing. That dumped him back to 12 for the restart with just 16 laps to go.
Harvick dove inside of McMurray and got the lead on the restart. Before the field got back around to the line, Terry Labonte got spun in the chute between turns 3 and 4 and spun, starting a multicar crash.
Harvick came back to the yellow with the lead for the first time since Lap 17, and as the field made laps under the caution he moved closer and closer to picking up the victory.