Harvick Ends Drought, Wins at New Hampshire

Originally written for CLNS Media.

Kevin Harvick won the Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 from New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon.

Harvick used pit strategy late in the race to pick up his first win of the season.  When a caution came out with 30 laps to go, Harvick stayed out while most of the field behind him pitted.  After retaining the lead on the restart, Harvick had to hold off Denny Hamlin, who was coming with two fresher tires.

Courtesy NASCAR

Harvick said he didn’t think the call would turn out to be the winning move.

“I didn’t think we had the best chance to win staying out, but Rodney and those guys made a great call,” Harvick said.  “Stayed out there and ran a lot of good laps.”

Harvick was able to hold Hamlin off for most of the final run, but the two made contact while racing around lapped traffic on the final lap.

Harvick said he knew Hamlin would use the bumper on the final lap.

“He tried to move me out of the way there and I knew that was coming as close as he was,” Harvick said.  “He dove to the outside of me and I just put a wheel on him.”

Hamlin used his bumper to try and move Harvick on the last lap, but he wasn’t able to complete the pass after the two made contact coming out of the final corner.

Hamlin said he didn’t want to completely ruin Harvick’s race by putting him in the wall.

“I wanted to just tap him there, but didn’t want to completely screw him,” Hamlin said.  “I at least wanted to give him a fair shot.”

“He saw that I had a big run and just turned right…I would do the same thing.”

Unofficial results:

1. Kevin Harvick

2. Denny Hamlin

3. Erik Jones

4. Ryan Blaney

5. Matt DiBenedetto

6. Martin Truex Jr.

7. Ryan Newman

8. Kyle Busch

9. Joey Logano

10. Brad Keselowski

11. Aric Almirola

12. William Byron

13. Paul Menard

14. Alex Bowman

15. Chris Buescher

16. Ty Dillon

17. Michael McDowell

18. Kurt Busch

19. Daniel Suarez

20. Clint Bowyer

21. Ryan Preece

22. Bubba Wallace

23. Corey LaJoie

24. Matt Tifft

25. Ross Chastain

26. Landon Cassill

27. Reed Sorenson

28. Andy Seuss

29. Chase Elliott

30. Jimmie Johnson

31. Quin Houff

32. Austin Dillon

33. Kyle Larson

34. David Ragan

35. Austin Theriault

36. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

37. Daniel Hemric