Harvick Takes the Checkered Flag in NASCAR's Return to Racing

After two-plus months of relative inactivity, NASCAR returned to the track on Sunday with the Real Heroes 400 at Darlington Sunday afternoon. While there were some things that were out of the norm for a typical racing day at the track, the fact that there were 40 cars going around the track brought some semblance of normalcy and kicked off a stretch of 11 days during which there will be seven races spread across the NASCAR Cup, the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series. Let’s take a look at what unfolded on “The Track Too Tough to Tame.”

Kevin Harvick, who went off as a +450 co-favorite to win the race, ended up coming up with the victory, marking his second career win at Darlington. He started from the sixth position on the starting grid and led a race-high 159 of the 293 laps on the course en route to a 2.154-second margin of victory. It marked Harvick’s 50th career win overall, tying him for the 12th-most in NASCAR history with Junior Johnson and Ned Jarrett. Alex Bowman, who signed a one-year contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports Saturday, finished second in the race with Kyle Busch finishing third in the race. Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five.

There were some less than stellar showings in the race by some big-name drivers. Jimmie Johnson was leading on the final lap of the first stage of the race only to crash and end up knocked out of the race. He finished 38th in the contest, having led nine laps before getting taken out. That showing was better than Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who didn’t even finish the opening lap of the race. He crashed in turn two of lap one of the race and finished dead last. All told, 24 racers finished all 293 laps in the race while three others finished a lap down. That’s nearly 70 percent of the racers that were within a lap when the race came to a close.

Only three racers led double-digit laps in the race and they combined to lead 280 of the 293 laps in the race. Harvick led 159 laps, pole sitter Brad Keselowski, who finished 13th, led 80 laps and Bowman led 41 in the race. Johnson (nine), William Byron (three) and J.J. Yeley (one) were the only other drivers to own the lead in the race. Byron finished 35th in the race as he completed 279 laps, while Yeley finished 28th. A flat tire and a crash into the outside retaining wall on lap 110 doomed Byron from a better showing. There were 10 lead changes among the six drivers and 10 caution flags that took up 57 laps under the yellow flag.

Before the race even began, there was an issue that took one of the teams from near the front of the field to the back. Kyle Busch was the lone car to fail inspection twice and it cost him a solid spot on the starting grid. He was initially slated to start fourth but after the inspection failures, he was pushed to the back of the field. The shift in starting spots seemed to affect Busch, who never really challenged in the race and ended up finishing 26th. Joey Logano, who won two of the first four races of the season before the NASCAR season was put on pause, ended up finishing 18th after starting ninth in the race. Two racers coming back after layoffs had their ups and downs on the track. Ryan Newman, who has been out since a horrific wreck at the season-opening Daytona 500, finished 15th. Meanwhile, Matt Kenseth, who hadn’t raced since 2018 and only came out of retirement due to Kyle Larson being fired for using a racial slur in an iRacing Series race, finished 10th.

Harvick recorded his fifth top-10 showing in as many races this season and maintained his spot atop the points standings with the win. He leads Bowman by 28 points with Logano (33 points behind), Chase Elliott (40 points back) and Keselowski (60 points back) rounding out the top five. It won’t be long for these guys to get back behind the wheel: the next race comes from Darlington again on Wednesday night with the Toyota 500. At the moment, the green flag is expected to drop at 7:30 pm ET for that contest.