No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet
Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 at Michigan International Speedway
Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
• Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team rallied from late-race contact with the outside retaining wall to finish 14th in Sunday’s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 at Michigan International Raceway.
• Harvick started from the 22nd position and radioed to the team a few laps after the green flag waved that the car’s handling was too tight.
• Crew chief Gil Martin had the No. 29 Budweiser crew making chassis and air pressure adjustments to help improve the car’s handling starting with the team’s first trip to pit road at lap 9.
• Harvick cracked the top 10 on lap 31 after a great stop by the crew on their second trip to pit road and a strong restart by the driver on lap 30.
• The No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet remained inside the top 10 for the next 136 laps as the team continued to make adjustments as the track changed with the weather as it went from sunny and warm to cloudy and cool.
• A few laps after the lap 163 restart Harvick radioed to the team that the car was loose and “just sideways.” The following lap he got into the wall and damaged the right side of his No. 29 ride. Harvick fell back to 21st position over the course of the next 10 laps.
• The caution flag waved with 10 laps to go with Harvick running in 17th position. Martin called him to pit road for fresh tires, fuel and to repair the car’s right-side damage. He restarted from the 18th position when the green flag waved at lap 195. In the closing laps Harvick made it as high as 12th position before taking the checkered flag in 14th position.
• Denny Hamlin scored the win in Sunday’s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400. Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Paul Menard and Carl Edwards completed the top-five finishing positions.
• While Edwards continues to lead the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver point standings, Harvick jumped two spots up to second position following Sunday’s race. He’s currently 20 markers behind Edwards. Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson round out the top five.
• Follow along each weekend with Harvick and the team on Twitter. Check out @KevinHarvick for behind-the-scenes information straight from the driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet. Get live updates from the track each weekend from @Black29Car, the PR team for Harvick. Also, follow @RCRracing and @RCR29KHarvick for additional information about the Richard Childress Racing organization.
Harvick on his finish at Michigan: “We just got really loose at the end. I should have just backed her down a little bit and wound up getting the car into the fence. But the team did a good job of fixing it and we did what we could with it at the end and were able to come home OK.”
The following is the finish position of the other beverage-sponsored cars participating in the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400:
• Matt Kenseth and the No. 17 Crown Royal Fast Ford team finished second.
• Brian Vickers and the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota team finished 10th.
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet team finished 21st.
• Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, finished 25th.
• Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 4 Red Bull Toyota, finished 28th.
• Robby Gordon, driver of the No. 7 SPEED Energy/Walgreens Dodge, finished 37th.
The following is the finish position of the other Richard Childress Racing teams participating in the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400:
• Paul Menard, driver of the No. 27 Pittsburgh Paints/Menards Chevrolet, finished fourth.
• Clint Bowyer and the No. 33 Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet finished eighth.
• Jeff Burton and the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet team finished 24th.
Next Sunday NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams will compete in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. On Friday, SPEED is scheduled to air the 90-minute practice session live at 3 p.m. ET. The afternoon qualifying session will air, tape-delayed, on SPEED at 11 p.m. ET. Saturday’s two practice sessions will be shown on SPEED, tape-delayed, starting at 2:30 p.m. ET. TNT will provide the live race broadcast on Sunday starting with the pre-race show at 2 ET. Sirius XM NASCAR Radio and PRN will air radio coverage of the on-track action.