Photo Credit: Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR
When the Sprint Cup Series heads to Phoenix International Raceway, the field knows in order to come away victorious there is one man they know they have to beat. That man is Kevin Harvick.
Coming into Sunday’s Good Sam 500K, Harvick had already amassed numbers at the 1.000 mile oval that is the stuff of legends with seven career wins and eight finishes of second or better in the last nine Phoenix races.
Harvick would have to rely on all of his Phoenix bag of tricks and more in the closing laps on Sunday while holding off a hard charging Carl Edwards on a green-white-checkered restart by 0.01 seconds to score his eighth Phoenix win and his fifth win in the past six Phoenix races.
Harvick who led a race high 139 laps on the afternoon spoke of his love for racing at Phoenix and the struggle of finding the balance in his race car post race.
“I just like racing here,” Harvick said. “It’s just one of those places where I feel like I’ve been here enough times to where I can move around and find something to make our car work.
“We struggled a lot this weekend to get the balance where we wanted to, but we knew the feel that we were looking for.”
Carl Edwards who has had his share of success at Phoenix made a charge on the final restart from 4th to 2nd on two fresh tires however Edwards couldn’t quite close the deal at the finish line. Edwards knew the race was his to lose on the restart but couldn’t get by Harvick.
“He was pretty fast, even on old tires,” Edwards said of Harvick. “Once we got clear, I thought we were going to get one shot. I tried to go to the outside of him and he blocked a little bit, and I didn’t have anywhere to go but rub him a little bit.”
“I didn’t want to wreck him; those guys earned their spot,” Edwards said. “I moved him, and it was just a drag race. And we just lost it.
“That is going to be a tough one to swallow, but it really was a lot of fun.”
Edwards’ Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch would finish third and fourth respectively. Dale Earnhardt Jr. would finish fifth followed by Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth, Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon, and Ryan Blaney.
Other notable finishers included Jimmie Johnson in 11th, Martin Truex Jr. 15th, Joey Logano 18th, Danica Patrick 19th, and Brad Keselowski in 29th.
