NSCS: Johnson Flies Past Harvick for Auto Club 400 Victory

Kevin Harvick looked to have the victory locked up, but everything changed when the caution flew with two laps to go for Kyle Busch blowing a tire.

After coming off of pit road with four tires, Jimmie Johnson was able to power by Harvick to score the victory for the 77th of his career.

“I knew we had great car and that caution fell at a bad time the run before.  I just didn’t have the tires on the car to race with those guy,” he commented. ” To go there at the end and have good tires on the car, Harvick and I got by I guess Joey there at the start.  I got a great run off of Turn 2 and I thought ‘man I’ve got a shot at this thing’.  Which I didn’t expect to have, Harvick has been so fast.  I cleared him and kind of got away.  We saved our best for last for sure.

“I told everybody Superman kicked Batman’s butt and it happened.  I’m very thankful for Lowe’s and the amazing relationship we have had over the years, Chevrolet, everybody at Hendrick Motorsports, this is going to be a good time.”

Harvick would finish second after leading a race-high 142 laps, which seems to be a theme for him this season when he dominates.

“That was the worst it has taken off on restarts, but we weren’t very good on restarts for four or five laps unless we were all by ourselves,” he said. “The No. 48 was able to hang with us and we just weren’t able to drive it in like I needed to, just didn’t’ have the front tires turning and the back wouldn’t grip.  Still a good day for us, just have to thank everybody from Jimmy John’s and Busch.  We will keep at it.”

Denny Hamlin finished third after battling back from a pit road speeding penalty and radio issues, followed by Joey Logano and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Chase Elliott finished sixth, followed by Carl Edwards, A.J. Allmendinger, Brad Keselowski and Jamie McMurray.

Tire issues would plague teams throughout the day, with 13 drivers making an unscheduled pit stop or suffering a tire failure. Kyle Larson suffered the worst of his competitors at lap 46 as the tire would go out down the backstretch, with him trying to save it, but ending up crashing hard into the inside wall.

“I was going down the back stretch and I think it was my left-rear tire got cut,” he said. “It must have ripped the brake line because I went to push the pedal and it went straight to the floor board.  I couldn’t slow down.  It was definitely a hard hit there, probably one of the harder ones of my career.  Even before that we were pretty sub-average there, we were pretty bad.  Disappointed in our run today, but glad I’m alright.”

Danica Patrick would also suffer a hard crash on the front stretch following contact with Kasey Kahne with 80 laps to go. The pair went for the same piece of real estate, with Patrick’s right rear getting clipped and turned into the wall. Notably, Patrick was on the lead lap at the time while Kahne was a lap down.

“We were on a restart and I had a run on him so I went down low,” she recalled. “If you get too close to them then it will drag you both back.  I was going low.  I saw him chase me down the track and then the next thing I know I was getting spun up the track.  I am I was passing him.  He was behind me in the right rear.

“I don’t know what kind of day he was having. I just heard he was a lap down actually.  I feel bad if he felt like he was put in a position to have to be that desperate a lap down.  It’s just unfortunate; he must be having a very tough time.  I was having a pretty good recovery day, kind of like last weekend.  I was just running good race laps and on the lead lap at the end of the race back up into the top 20 from a bad starting position.  And I was looking forward to a good finish and a good off week.  Unfortunately now there is more work to be done at the shop, which is not I’m sure what they want, but we had a good TaxAct car and Billy (Scott, crew chief) did a good job to set-up for today and we were moving forward.”