NASCAR – Kevin Harvick Burns it Down After Milestone Win In Las Vegas

NASCAR Veteran Kevin Harvick was nearly untouchable at this weekends Monster Energy NASCAR Cup series, leading 214 of 267 laps of the Pennzoil 400 in a thoroughly dominant performance at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This marked Havick’s second win on the young season and 100th overall across all of the sanction’s national series for his career.

Harvick beat trunner-up up Kyle Busch to the stripe by three seconds and young phenom Kyle Larson rounded out the podium in the third spot. The race was mostly uneventful, with Harvick taking the lead early and only relinquishing it when stopping to pit under green. However, as the rest of the teams cycled through their pit stops, Harvick would quickly return to the front of the field and drive away to a comfortable lead. With so much green flag racing – there were only three cautions on the day, one of which was a quick caution for debris on the track – Harvick was able to lap nearly the entire field, finishing the race with only eight other drivers joining him on the lead lap.

The two cautions for crashes came late in the race after Harvick had already established himself as the man to beat. Jamie McMurray had his Chevrolet Camaro get loose and slide into the outside wall on lap 176, then Kurt Busch’s Ford Fusion stepped out and send him up the track into Chase Elliot on lap 183 while both of them were running near the front of the field. Busch said in the post-incident interview that he wasn’t even pushing the car 100% when it inexplicably slid up the track, collecting Elliot and sending both cars to the garage.

The Vegas win is Harvick’s 39th win in the sport’s premier series, tying him with Matt Kenseth and Tim Flock for 19th in career victories. The series continues next weekend just down the road at ISM Raceway in Phoenix, AZ, where Harvick will look to complete the hat-trick by winning his third race in a row.