Kevin Harvick's runner-up finish at Kansas makes up for qualifying struggles
Kevin Harvick's second-place finish in the Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway showed just how hard his team worked to get the car right before Saturday night's race.
"Our Jimmy John's Chevrolet was terrible in qualifying trim and in practice, and it continued that trend in qualifying (Friday), so hopefully the extra time that we spent in race trim pays off for us," said Harvick on Friday after failing to make it past the first round of qualifying.
The extra work by his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet crew paid off, indeed.
Harvick wasted no time once the green flag dropped.
After methodically working his way through the field from his 26th-place starting spot, he showed up when it counted the most.
And if it wasn't for a piece of debris on the final restart, he just might have rolled into Victory Lane instead of Kyle Busch.
"(I) hit a big piece of debris and knocked a big hunk out of the nose and knocked the splitter down," said Harvick about the restart. "From that point on it was tight. Otherwise I would have drove around him."
"All in all, it just didn't play out that way and they were able to win the race," Harvick added.
The runner-up finish is a testiment to just how much talent his team holds, led by crew chief Rodney Childers.
"From where the car was yesterday (Friday), to change pretty much everything on the car and have it be that competitive on the race track today, says a lot about our team," Harvick said.
It's that type of team effort -- a willingness to never give up -- that's a part of what makes Harvick a threat to win each race.
