DOVER, Del. – Neither a late afternoon rain storm, nor a challenge from his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Clint Bowyer could keep Kevin Harvick from winning at Dover Int’l Speedway on Sunday afternoon.
Harvick drove to victory with a clean sweep of the AAA 400 Drive for Autism, taking both stages and the race for a perfect 60-point haul in his No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion.
He led a race-high 201 of 400 laps for his 41st career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win, fourth of the season and second at Dover.
Harvick becomes the first driver with a quartet of Cup Series wins this season. The last driver to win four of the year’s first 11 races was Jimmie Johnson in 2007; the same year that Johnson won his second of five consecutive series titles.
“The first thing I’ve got to do is thank everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing for continuing to put the effort that they put into these cars,” said Harvick. “(Having) three cars in the top five says a lot about where we are as a company.
“It was great to see the fans stick around for the finish, but it was a lot of fun racing my teammate. That says a lot about our company and one of my good friends as well. What a performance today.”
The 2014 Cup champion had control of the day virtually from the outset.
Harvick was elevated to the outside of the front row after polesitter Kyle Larson had to drop to the rear under penalty for pre-race inspection issues, jumping to the lead off the initial start and leading the first 21 circuits.
Though an early round of pit stops dropped Harvick back out of the top five due to others’ strategy, he methodically worked his way back forward, taking the lead again on lap 108 and then engaging in a back-and-forth battle with Brad Keselowski through the remainder of the race’s first half.
Quick pit work put Keselowski back up front following a lap 153 caution, but Harvick reasserted his claim to the top spot at lap 200 and cruised for much of the race’s third quarter from there.
The first of two turning points in the race came when third-running Kyle Busch lost the driveshaft on his No. 18 Toyota with 129 to go, bringing out the caution flag and shuffling the strategy of the frontrunners.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Jamie McMurray stayed out on older tires, while Keselowski and Joey Logano filled the second row on two tires and Harvick and Bowyer lined up in the third row with four fresh tires.
On the restart with 119 laps left, Stenhouse shot out like a rocket, opening up a quick second and a half lead over the field as Harvick got pinned behind McMurray and dropped to as low as seventh.
