MARTINSVILLE, Va. – When the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs began in September, conventional wisdom held that Kevin Harvick, with seven wins at the time and the regular season champion, would be a relatively safe lock for the championship race at Phoenix Raceway in November.
Conventional wisdom was nowhere to be found Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.
While Chase Elliott won on the half-mile track to make it to the Championship 4, Harvick’s title hopes ended after a last lap “Hail Mary” to get the one point he needed to advance.
Harvick attempted to gain that point by spinning defending Cup Series champion Kyle Busch as they exited turn four.
It backfired.
While Busch did spin, so did Harvick. It resulted in his No. 4 Ford backing into the inside wall and coming to a stop a few car lengths from the start-finish line.
Instead of competing in the Championship 4 for the sixth time in the seven years of the elimination format, Harvick finished 17th and was left eight points below the cutline.
For Kurt Busch it was “hard to fathom.”
Martin Truex Jr. called it “insane” when he found out.
But Harvick, who has nine wins through 35 races, recognized his elimination is a product of the format, which is “obviously skewed more towards entertainment than the whole year.”
Said Harvick, “(These championships) aren’t won the same way that (Dale) Earnhardt and (Richard) Petty did. You have to put together a few weeks and we didn’t put together these last few weeks like we needed to and just came up short.”
Harvick entered Martinsville 42 points above the cutline. In the previous five races, he had just one top-five finish, placing second at Kansas Speedway to open the round of eight. He finished 16th at Texas Motor Speedway.
In all three round of eight races Harvick earned 14 stage points, including none Sunday night.
Stage points were put out of reach for Harvick, who was already deep in the field, when he had to pit for a cut tire on lap 180.
He would spend more than 200 laps off the lead lap before receiving the free pass when a caution came out with 102 laps to go.
“We got a couple laps down and every time we’d get close one of the other cars would get lapped and so it just wound up not working out for us quick enough to get back where we needed to be,” Harvick said.
Harvick isn’t hanging his head over the fact that the best statistical season of his Cup Series career won’t include a championship.
“I’ve been punched in the gut a lot harder,” Harvick said. “We won nine races, had a great year … The championship is kind of a bonus. It would be great to win it, obviously, but I’d rather go through the year and win races and do the things that we did and just came up short.”
His last chance to get win No. 10 comes at Phoenix Raceway, a track he’s won at nine times in his career.
Should he win on the one-mile track next Sunday, he’d put an end to the elimination era trend that’s seen the champion win the race each year.
“It’s been a great race track for us and obviously that’s what we want to do,” Harvick said. “I just want to get the season over with.”