Battle of driving owners: Kevin Harvick outlasts Kyle Busch for truck triumph at Atlanta
Kevin Harvick won the E-Z-Go 200 on Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Illustrated
HAMPTON, Ga. – Brand new truck. Same old result.
Driving a Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevrolet that saw its first action this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, driver/owner Kevin Harvick dominated Saturday's E-Z-Go 200 to win for the third time in his last three Truck Series starts.
In a race that saw several championship contenders fall by the wayside, Harvick crossed the stripe 1.308 seconds ahead of Kyle Busch at the end of a 14-lap green-flag dash to the finish. Billy Ballew Motorsports' Aric Almirola came home third, followed by Billy Ballew's Steve Wallace, the 25th driver to register a top-five in his first race in the series.
Harvick said his occasional appearances in the truck series are designed to "protect his turf" and keep Busch out of victory lane as often as possible. To that end, KHI often builds new trucks for its owner and teammate Ron Hornaday Jr. to drive. Used trucks are sold to other teams.
"We probably have a third of the field out on the race track," said Harvick, who has won in all three national touring series at Atlanta. "That's how we make truck racing work. We have a lot of customers that we hang bodies for and give a lot of technical support for, and that's what keeps our team going.
"If they want this one [winning truck], they can come have this one, too."
Busch recorded the best finish for his fledgling Kyle Busch Motorsports team, which was formed during the offseason.
"We weren't quite as fast as we would have liked to have been, but we're not sure if that came from our damage early in the race on lap 1 or not," Busch said. "We still had a real decent effort, and I'm real proud of the way the KBM team ran today, with myself and the way [teammate] Tayler [Malsam] came up through there."
Malsam ran well in the second half of the race, but an off-sequence pit stop dropped him to 13th at the finish.
Four-time series champion Ron Hornaday Jr., who won the pole for Saturday's race, took another blow against the defense of his 2009 title when a blown left rear tire shot his truck backward into the Turn 4 wall. Hornaday, who opened the season with a 27th-place finish at Daytona last month, was credited with a 34th-place result at Atlanta.
Hornaday's troubles started, however, at the start of the race, when ThorSport's Matt Crafton took Hornaday and Busch three-wide moments after the green flag. The right front of Busch's Toyota rubbed the left rear of Hornaday, damaging both vehicles.
Harvick inspected a tire rub on Hornaday and told Hornaday he thought the tire would last. Harvick was wrong, and Hornaday slammed the wall when the tire blew, injuring his truck beyond repair.
"Hate to see it, but we had a good truck, and we'll come back," Hornaday said after leaving the infield care center. "Kyle and I spun our tires a little and that's what got [Crafton] the run."
Crafton, who finished second to Hornaday in the series standings last year, had his own succession of problems. On lap 60, Crafton slipped in Turn 2 and collected Germain Racing's Todd Bodine, who remained on the lead lap despite the accident.
A cut tire on lap 69 sent Crafton hard into the Turn 2 wall for the second time and ended his race. He finished 27th and dropped from fifth to eighth in the series standings.
Bodine finish fifth to take the series points lead. Turner Motorsports' Ricky Carmichael, Red Horse Racing's Timothy Peters, ThorSports Racing's Johnny Sauter, Circle Bar Racing's Rick Crawford and Richard Childress Racing rookie Austin Dillon completed the top 10.
