Saturday Martinsville Notebook
Notebook Items:
• Harvick Faces Uphill Battle At Martinsville
• Hamlin: No Holding Back In Eliminator
• Eliminator Eight: Final Practice Highlights
Oct. 25, 2014
Kevin Harvick faces uphill battle at Martinsville
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
MARTINSVILLE,
Va.— If Kevin Harvick truly is one of the heavy favorites to win the
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, he’s going to have to prove it on
Sunday.
Fighting
a loose handling car during Friday’s time trials, Harvick brushed the
wall at Martinsville Speedway and qualified 33rd. Starting that deep in
the field for Sunday’s
Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 presents a litany of complications for
the driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet.
With
the 33rd pick of a pit box, Harvick won’t have a stall that will lend
itself to making up ground under yellow. Starting that close to the rear
of the field in the first
event of the Chase’s Eliminator Round, Harvick will have to tax his
equipment to keep from getting lapped.
“You
start back there, and it’s tough for a lot of reasons,” said
second-place starter Joey Logano, when asked to describe the problems
Harvick will face. “Obviously, the leaders
are going to be there in a second, so you’ve got to go pretty hard.
But, really, when you’re that far back, the line checks up so much… the
inside lane just keeps checking up a lot into the corners and you can
shove the nose in pretty quick there and really
be trying to take care of yourself, and the next thing you know, you’re
in the back of a car.
“So I
think that will probably be something you’ve got to be aware, and
obviously guys fighting to the bottom and the sense of urgency back
there is very high, so you’re not
really saving any tires because you’ve got to go. If it’s a long run,
that’s where you can get in trouble pretty quick--if it’s a long green
flag run on the first run. I’ve been there before. That’s how I know.”
All
that said, the main things mitigating against Harvick are history and
statistics. Only once in the annals of the legendary .526-mile track,
over the course of 131 races,
has a driver won a Cup race from a starting position outside the top
24.
That was in 2002, when Kurt Busch collected the first of his two Martinsville wins from 36th on the grid.
The
good news is that Harvick was fifth fastest in race trim during Saturday
morning’s Sprint Cup practice session and fastest during Happy Hour.
The bad news is that he has a lot of cars to pass on Sunday.
HAMLIN: NO HOLDING BACK IN ELIMINATOR
Now
that the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup has entered the Eliminator
Round, with the number of drivers eligible for the championship to be
cut from eight to four after the
Nov. 9 race at Phoenix, Denny Hamlin’s attitude has shifted to all-out
aggressive.
“You
have to have all the pieces together, now that you’re part of the final
eight, because the four that move on will be the four that stand out, I
think, in this round,”
Hamlin said.
“It’s
not going to be about surviving or backing your way (in). I don’t think
anybody other than the race winners (at Martinsville and Texas) will be
going into Phoenix thinking,
‘OK, let’s just have a solid week here and move on to Homestead.’
There’s no more hanging back and trying to be conservative from here on
out. You’ve got to be fast.”
A
four-time winner at Martinsville in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota,
Hamlin is the only non-Chevrolet driver to take a checkered flag at
NASCAR’s shortest Cup venue since
the spring race of 2004.
And
Hamlin showed excellent speed in Friday’s qualifying session. He’ll
start fifth in the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 on Sunday.
SHORT STROKES
Chase
drivers occupied four of the top 10 spots in Saturday’s final NASCAR
Sprint Cup Series practice session at Martinsville, with Kevin Harvick
topping the speed chart at
97.322. Brad Keselowski was third fastest, with Jeff Gordon fifth and
Joey Logano ninth.
Gordon
paced the field in average speed over 10 consecutive laps, running
96.550 mph to edge Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson.
After
Happy Hour, championship contender Carl Edwards has cause for concern.
Edwards’ No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing Ford was 33rd fastest in single-lap
speed and 32nd quickest
in 10-lap average, neither a good omen for the first race in the
Eliminator Round of the Chase on Sunday.
Edwards
will start 11th in the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500, but he’ll need
to find more speed to hold that position at a track that hasn’t been
particularly kind to him
in the past.
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