Filed under: Clint Bowyer, David Reutimann, Denny Hamlin, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sprint Cup, Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR
The most unpredictable track in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series more than lived up to its reputation Sunday as Talladega Superspeedway put the top three drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup through a tumultuous game of Chutes and Ladders over the course of 188 laps of racing. When it was over, all three -- Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick -- had somehow escaped with solid, top-10 finishes, but the Chase for the Sprint Cup was even tighter than before, at least as a three-way battle.
Johnson finished seventh and added eight points to his slim lead over Hamlin, who finished ninth and is now 14 points behind. But Harvick, by virtue of his miraculous runner-up finish in a damaged car, made it a true three-man contest, pulling to within 38 points of Johnson after trailing by 62.
Harvick (battling upper right with the No. 33 of Bowyer late in the race) had been competitive through much of the early race, leading seven times for 11 laps, until fate intervened on lap 141 when his teammate, eventual race winner Clint Bowyer, got into Marcos Ambrose and turned him sideways in front of Harvick, who had nowhere to go.
Harvick's team taped up the front-end damage and sent him back out, keeping him on the lead lap, but the number of people in the grandstands who thought Harvick had any further chance could have fit into a rowboat.
The damage "definitely didn't help," Harvick said. "But we still were able to get up in the right position with the 00 (driven by David Reutimann) behind us."
Meanwhile, at about the time of Harvick's crash on this Halloween Sunday, Hamlin was just coming back from the dead.
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Michel Leclere Richard Lee Rudd Elliott William Barnes Sadler
No comments:
Post a Comment