Harvick kisses the Bricks, Newman & Bowyer grab last two playoffs spots (9-8-19)

By: Becca Cottingham

Headline Photo From: indiatimespost.com

The Brickyard 400 has so much weighing on it four multiple drivers as well as the threat of rain. Kevin Harvick was able to get out to a great lead to start with at the start of the race. We had multiple battles going on until Daniel Suarez scrapped the wall and cut a tire. That made for a very busy and small pit road at Indy. This pit road was not made for NASCAR but other cars such as Indy cars. So thirty plus drivers on that pit road caused accidents. Chase Elliott got bumped by Bubba Wallace. Then a chain reaction happened from there. Martin Truex Jr obtain substantial damage that most of his front in is taped down. With less than ten laps to go Landon Cassill had something break loose or a tire cut down and plow into turn one with a final hit in turn two. The stage will come to an end under caution after a hard wreck between Brad Keselowski and Erik Jones. Brad ended up on his side in the tire wall on the inside of the race track. Clean up will take some time between fixing the tires as well as speedy dry for any fluid. Joey Logano won the stage and brought the cars to the red flag to allow time for clean up.

Stage two has started with drivers racing the wheels off these cars. We are two and even three wide and various places of this race track. All of the bubble drivers are racing to get into the chase with either points or a win. We have seen big moves by Jimmie Johnson after issues earlier this race. We have had some major racing throughout all of the race track. However, Kyle Busch after just being on pit road blew an engine. He was able to get on an access road, but the car came to a smoking halt on pit road. We got back to racing only for another caution came out. There was debris in turn two and this brought them through the end of stage two. This means Kevin Harvick will gain the stage points as he continues to show his dominance. The question is now with Jimmie Johnson’s pit strategy how things may play out for him.

The start of stage three brought out a wreck that took Jimmie Johnson out of contention for the Chase. Multiple cars involved in the wreck. The incident happened while drivers were three wide on the track going into the turns. After things settled down from the wreck and the race got restarted, Ryan Blaney made moves and got to the front of the pack. We had solid racing with green flag pit stops when Kyle Larson lost control of his car and brought out the caution. We got back from the caution only for Alex Bowman to lose control of his car and spun out surprisingly not collecting anyone else. We then almost had a close call between Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney. Thankfully things settled down and we had a great finish. Kevin Harvick was able to keep everyone off him and get a decent lead. Once he made it out front that was all there was too it. Kevin Harvick is the unofficial winner with Ryan Newman and Clint Bowyer grabbing the last two spots for the playoffs.

Next Race:

Sunday, Sept 15 7pm, South Point 400 at Las Vegas Speedway