No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet
Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway
Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
• Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet team avoided trouble in Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and brought home a sixth-place finish to maintain second position in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver point standings.
• Harvick started the night out in 14th position with a car that he said was “way too tight” on the first run. Crew chief Gil Martin called for a four-tire stop with air pressure and chassis adjustments on the first trip to pit road at lap 43. Once green-flag pit stops cycled through, Harvick was scored in the 13th position.
• The No. 29 car was still too tight for Harvick when the caution flag waved for the first time at lap 76. Martin called for a two-tire stop when he came down pit road two laps later in an effort to gain valuable track position. Harvick restarted in the second position at lap 81, but still felt the car was too tight as he slipped back to 11th before the team’s next pit stop at lap 122. That trip down pit road they made a four-tire stop and additional chassis adjustments.
• The caution flag waved for the second time at lap 146 and again the No. 29 team gambled with a two-tire stop. However, a number of other teams did as well, so Harvick lined up in the ninth position for the lap 152 restart.
• Harvick was running 12th when the team pitted again at lap 193. On the ensuing run, Harvick noted the car was “too tight off.”
• Martin called Harvick to pit road again at lap 235, but spotter Billy Odea told him to stay out as a car was slowing on the backstretch. Two laps later the caution flag waved as the No. 21 car, out of fuel, was unable to make it to pit road. The spotter’s call kept Harvick on the lead lap and he restarted in the 10th position after pitting for four tires, fuel and an air pressure adjustment. Harvick started the run out too tight, but the car’s handling seemed to improve over the course of the run.
• The No. 29 team came back down pit road at lap 285 for four tires and fuel, and just two laps later the caution flag waved. As the leader hadn’t pitted yet, Harvick was caught a lap down. The team took the wave around and was listed in the 12th position when the green flag waved at lap 292.
• Before the field completed a lap, the Nos. 4, 6 and 24 cars made contact and spun. Harvick went low to miss the cars and had to make a quick move back up the track to keep from t-boning the No. 4 car. He then radioed to the team that the car was “a little bit too tight” and that there was grass on the grille. The team pitted for the final time on lap 295 to put on fresh tires, add fuel and clean off the grille.
• Harvick restarted in the 10th position at lap 298 and gained two spots before the caution flag waved again a lap later. Once the field took the green again, Harvick worked his way up to the sixth position before the caution flag waved at lap 316.
• On the last run, Harvick got up to fourth with 11 laps to go, but fell back two spots to sixth with a tight-handling car. He maintained the position in the remaining laps and took the checkered flag in the sixth position, scoring his fourth top-10 finish in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and his 17th of the season.
• Matt Kenseth scored the win in Saturday night’s race. Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Kasey Kahne and Marcos Ambrose completed the top-five positions.
• Edwards continues to lead the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver point standings and holds a five-point margin over Harvick with five races remaining in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart round out the top-five spots in the standings.
• 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 Charlotte Motor Speedway: “We made it through the first five Chase (for the NASCAR Sprint Cup) races this year. We have had a lot of goals that we wanted to achieve this year and that was one of the goals we wanted to achieve was to get through these first five races, with not too much damage, so five points, if you would have told me we would come out of Charlotte with a only a five-point deficit going into the next five races, I would be really happy. Everyone did a great job on our Jimmy John’s Chevrolet. It wasn’t great, but it was better at the end of the race than it was in the first half.”
The following is the finish position of the other beverage-sponsored cars participating in the Bank of America 500:
• Matt Kenseth and the No. 17 Fluidmaster Ford team finished first.
• Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 4 Red Bull Toyota, finished fourth.
• Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, finished 16th.
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard/Chevy 100th Chevrolet team finished 19th.
• Brian Vickers and the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota team finished 20th.
• Mike Bliss and the No. 32 Street King Ford team finished 30th.
• Robby Gordon and the No. 7 SPEED Energy/Harris Teeter Dodge team finished 38th.
The following is the finish position of the other Richard Childress Racing teams participating in the Bank of America 500:
• Paul Menard, driver of the No. 27 CertainTeed/Menards Chevrolet, finished 17th.
• Jeff Burton and the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet team finished 18th.
• Clint Bowyer and the No. 33 Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet finished 24th.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams will travel to Talladega, Ala., next weekend for the Good Sam Club 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, Oct. 23. ESPN will provide the TV broadcast of the race starting with the pre-race show at 1 p.m. ET. MRN Radio affiliates and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio coverage of the race.