Kevin Harvick passes Busch late to win John R. Elliott HERO Campaign 300

At first it looked as though Brad Keselowski would cruise to victory lane – then he sped on pit road. Then it looked as though Kyle Busch would grab the win. However, that wouldn’t happen as Kevin Harvick would make the pass with five laps to go on a late restart to grab the victory in the John R. Elliott HERO Campaign 300.

It marks Harvick’s second victory of the season and the 42nd of his career. It also marks the fifth victory this season for JR Motorsports.

Harvick didn’t have a solid start to the day, though, as he got behind early in the race as a result of multiple issues on pit road.

“I kind of got into them a little good,” Harvick commented. “They made a quite few mistakes. But in the end, we had a good restart and were able to get in front of there.”

Keselowski would claw his way back to second, though was unable to chase down Harvick in the final laps.

“We need a little more,” Keselowski concluded. “If we were able to stay in the front we may have been okay with clean air, but obviously he had the better car at the end so congratulations. I made the mistake and unfortunately, we’re one spot short than we want to be.”

Busch would finish third, followed by Paul Menard and Ryan Blaney.

“We just didn’t have enough to hold off Harvick,” Busch said. “I’d say problem under the hood a little bit”

Brendan Gaughan finished sixth, followed by Ty Dillon, Brian Scott, Kyle Larson and Elliott Sadler. Sadler takes over the points lead, four points over Chase Elliott. Elliott finished in 12th behind Dylan Kwasniewski after contact with Trevor Bayne with nine laps to go that resulted in Bayne brushing the wall and the final caution of the event.

“Man, he really crowds me bad there,” Elliott said on the team radio. “That wasn’t intentional, you always give the guy a little room. That’s what I always thought. But I may be dumb so I don’t know.”

Regan Smith came in as the points leader, however contact with the wall at lap 169 of 200 took Smith out of contention. Smith thought he had cleared Ryan Reed, though wasn’t clear as he clipped Reed’s bumper and turned himself into the outside wall.

Smith wasn’t the only driver who made a mistake on Friday night, as Matt Kenseth would get loose down the back and nose the car into the wall at lap 101.

“I just spun out and wrecked,” Kenseth admitted. “Its just been out of control for three days and I probably just should have slowed down and ran 12th.”

There was also an incident early in the race when Ryan Sieg would spin. Sieg blamed the contact on Jeremy Clements, however the replay showed there was no contact. Sieg would spin Clements under caution.