Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick in Class of Their Own After 1-2 Finish at Kansas
The Chase for the Sprint Cup is a long way away—15 races and more than four months—and if your name isn’t Jimmie Johnson or Kevin Harvick, it’s a good thing.
Time must be bought. Catch-up must be played. Ground must be gained.
Johnson led only the final 10 laps of Saturday night’s (and Sunday morning’s) rain-interrupted SpongeBob SquarePants 400 at Kansas Speedway, hanging on to first place over Harvick, who cost himself track position by stopping for two fresh tires before the final six laps of racing.
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“In some ways, we fought really hard to get to Victory Lane,” Johnson said in the winner’s media conference afterwards, “but it’s fun to win one gambling.”
The Chase may be far away, but it affected the outcome. When crew chief Chad Knaus asked his driver for strategic input, Johnson didn’t say “Eureka,” nor did a light switch on, at least not literally.
“[Knaus] asked me what I wanted to do, and it just dawned on me,” Johnson said. “We’ve won two races. We’re locked into the Chase. Points don’t matter. It’s all about wins. I said, ‘Man, I feel like gambling, and that was the call and we stayed out.”
It wasn’t much of a gamble. Among those lined up between Johnson and Harvick, who had already led 53 laps, were Hendrick Motorsports teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon. Harvick made quick work of Gordon’s Chevy, but Earnhardt’s kept him occupied long enough for Johnson to escape.
“[Earnhardt] wasn’t that strong,” Harvick said in his own media conference. “He was just trying to run right in front of our car, so for those first few laps, you’re pushing (meaning the car is difficult to turn) and it really takes the air off the front of the car, and it gets ‘the chatter’ in the front end and it snaps around.
“But that was the strategy they took, and it worked out for them.”
| Date | Site | Johnson | Harvick |
| 8/31/14 | Atlanta | 4 | 19 |
| 9/14/14 | Chicagoland | 12 | 5 |
| 10/5/14 | Kansas | 40 | 13 |
| 10/11/14 | Charlotte | 17 | 1 |
| 11/2/14 | Texas | 2 | 1 |
| 11/16/14 | Homestead | 9 | 1 |
| 3/1/15 | Atlanta | 1 | 2 |
| 3/8/15 | Las Vegas | 41 | 1 |
| 4/11/15 | Texas | 1 | 2 |
| 5/9/15 | Kansas | 1 | 2 |
Johnson’s third victory of the season had something in common with the other two. Harvick finished second and leads the series point standings by a wide, but not overly important, margin of 46 points. Johnson and Harvick are going to make the Chase, and when it begins in September, 16 drivers are going to be virtually even.
The road to the championship is graded on a curve, but Johnson and Harvick are intent on screwing it up. They have been strong everywhere, but mostly they have dominated tracks that are 1.5 miles in length.
“Sometimes,” Harvick said, “you don’t make the right call. Sometimes the circumstances don’t play out the way you think they will, or whatever.”
At the end, said Earnhardt to Fox Sports, “I needed the outside. [Johnson] had the best line. We hung with him for a lap, but I knew it was going to be real hard to pass him on the bottom.
“We (he and Johnson) are working real well together and winning some races. Looking forward to the next one.”
In the previous race, at mammoth Talladega Superspeedway, Earnhardt won and Johnson played wing man to finish second. This time Johnson won, and Earnhardt settled for third. Gordon was fourth. The top four—Harvick competes for Stewart-Haas Racing, which is “technically aligned” with Hendrick—and seven of the top 10 drove Chevrolets.
In the final 10 races, composing the Chase, five are held at 1.5-mile tracks, one of which is a second trip to Kansas Speedway. The final race—at which point four drivers will remain in contention, tied in points—is at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It’s a mile-and-a-half.
To the extent that this format allows for favorites, Johnson and Harvick are obvious choices.
Meanwhile, arrayed behind them is a throng of other drivers, representing all three manufacturers, who are scrambling to catch up to Johnson and Harvick and Hendrick and Stewart-Haas.
“We should be happy finishing sixth,” Matt Kenseth said in a Toyota transcript. “That’s probably as high as we ran all night.”
Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Carl Edwards said after finishing 20th, “It was very frustrating, but we won’t quit and we’ll just keep on digging."
Ford driver Joey Logano, who has won four poles, including this one, said after a best-in-class fifth, “Passing all those cars was fun, but the rest of it, we just did a terrible job of executing this race. We made mistake after mistake. … We had a fast race car, and that is what saved us.”
As noted, Johnson led only the final 10 laps. His edge is defined both by a car that is fast (though, lately, not in qualifying) and a crew chief whose judgment seems flawless.
“We made a significant amount of changes to the race car, from ride-height changes to chassis changes to air-pressure changes to pit calls and strategy, and so on and so forth,” Knaus said in the media conference. “To be able to come out of here tonight with a victory was a lot of fun.
“A lot of hard work, but a lot of great people put us here.”
The victory was Johnson’s 73rd overall and third at Kansas Speedway. A couple of round numbers were impressive. It was his 200th career top-five finish and 300th in the top 10. He has won an all-time best 23 races on tracks of approximately a mile and a half in length. He has won four of the past seven, and Harvick won the other three. Seven more such races remain, five of them in the Chase.
Do that math. It favors the drivers who were first and second in Kansas.
All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.
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