Hembree: Kevin Harvick reasserts his place at top of NASCAR's 'Big Three'
NASCAR has a new leader but remains under the grip of an old boss.
Jim France rolled into the Irish Hills of Michigan this weekend to watch the racing series he now oversees as its new interim chairman, having replaced embattled Brian France, who one week ago was arrested and charged with DWI and possession of a controlled substance.
Jim France got a rerun of sorts on Sunday as Kevin Harvick dominated another event and won the Consumers Energy 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.
If that seems like a lot of Energies for one paragraph, check out Harvick’s day. He led 108 of 200 laps (no one else led more than 25), won both stages and the race and treated his son, Keelan, to a ride in the winning race car on the way to victory lane. Harvick was so strong Sunday he probably could have carried Keelan the entire 400 miles, read to him along the way and detoured for a beer or two.
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After stopping near the finish line and exiting the car, Harvick sent Keelan on a mission to pick up the checkered flag from the flagman. He reported to the car with the flag, then took a special ride with Dad.
“Keelan is saving me some work,” Harvick said. “Usually when I get home the next day we have to mock up a victory lane celebration. For him to be here and able to do that and be a part of NASCAR and bring your son to work and do all the things that we get to do with our kids ... I have had him with me by myself the last three weeks and we have had a ball.”
It’s not like he had been exerting himself. At the finish, no one was in Harvick’s ZIP code.
Brad Keselowski was second by 3.23 seconds, a relative eternity. And it’s worth noting that, in a year in which many drivers have had trouble finding victory lane while others are repeat visitors, Keselowski, a former champion, remains on the hunt for his first win of the season. He termed Sunday “so frustrating.”
None of this is new. The victory was Harvick’s seventh, good for the series lead. Combined with Kyle Busch’s six wins and four by Martin Truex Jr., the so-called Big Three have won 17 of the season’s 23 races.
Their dominance has been so blatant this year that it’s shocking that anybody else has won a race. We’re not exactly talking parity here.
The only remaining questions surrounding Harvick are: Can he win as many as 12 times? Will he win his second championship (his first came in 2014)? Is any of this real?
Until this year, Harvick had never won seven races in a season. He had never won six.
He’s doing all this as an “old” man of 42 in a season in which NASCAR has tried to celebrate youth and instead has seen its veterans storm through the schedule hitting home runs left and right.
Chase Elliott emerged from the fog last week to finally get his first win and give a boost to the new generation, but Harvick’s Sunday performance re-emphasized that this season belongs to the old guard and that he and stalwarts such as Busch and Truex are likely to be kingpins in the playoffs.
Only three races remain in the regular season with stops at Bristol Motor Speedway, Darlington Raceway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Busch has won the past two Bristol races and will surely be the favorite for the Saturday night race. Denny Hamlin, like Keselowski still winless on the season, won last year’s race at the track nicknamed “Too Tough To Tame,” but Truex and Harvick have also won at Darlington recently.
The regular season will wrap up at Indianapolis for the first time. The 2017 race produced a surprise winner in Kasey Kahne, but in the two previous races, the victor was, you guessed it, a member of the Big Three — Kyle Busch.
