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Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest

• Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet SS team dominated the Bank of America 500 and earned their third win of the 2014 season. By scoring the victory in Saturday night’s race, Harvick officially “punched his ticket” to advance to the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.
• Harvick started the race from the seventh position. He worked his way into the top five by lap 2 and took over the point position for the first time at lap 105.
• Crew chief Rodney Childers called for small adjustments throughout the race to help improve the balance of the No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet for Harvick, and the team remained inside the top-10 throughout the race.
• Harvick was scored in the third position when the caution flag waved at lap 266. Childers called for a four-tire stop two laps later and due to varying pit strategy, Harvick lined up sixth for the restart at lap 271.
• Nearly 20 laps later, Harvick raced his way back into the lead once again. The field cycled through a round of green-flag pit stops in the late stages of the race and Harvick was scored the leader once all teams had pitted at lap 318.
• The No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet held a substantial lead over the field when the caution flag waved for the final time at lap 327. Childers and Harvick discussed pit strategy, and a last-second call by Childers to stay out left Harvick at the front of the field for the green-white-checkered restart.
• Harvick took off when the green flag waved and took the checkered flag with a 0.571-second margin of victory. Jeff Gordon, Jamie McMurray, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch completed the top-five positions.
• Logano continues to lead the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver point standings following Saturday night’s race. Kyle Busch, Harvick, Ryan Newman and Carl Edwards complete the top-five spots.

Harvick on the win at Charlotte Motor Speedway:

“Everybody on our team has just continued to build better race cars and we know that we’ve had the cars to run up front and lead laps and do the things that we need to do. Things just haven’t gone right and we’ve made some mistakes; things haven’t gone right more than not though. But I just want to thank Budweiser and Jimmy John’s and Sprint and all the fans for everything that they do. This was the night that we needed to win.”

With tonight’s win, you’re going on to the next round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. How much relief is that for you? “Oh, we came here and tested thinking that this was going to be the hardest round to get through because of Talladega. There’s so much that you can’t control there. We wanted to try to control the things that we could control. We felt like Kansas and here (Charlotte) were playing to our strengths; and just see where it fell after that once we get to the next round. So I’m really proud of everybody at SHR. I’m really proud of all my guys on this team. I just can’t thank everybody enough.”

The following is the finishing position of the other Stewart-Haas Racing teams in Saturday’s race:

• Kurt Busch and the No. 41 State Water Heaters Chevrolet team finished 11th.
• Tony Stewart and the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevrolet team finished 21st.
• Danica Patrick and the No. 10 GoDaddy Breast Cancer Awareness Chevrolet team finished 26th.

Coming Up: 

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams travel to Talladega Superspeedway next weekend for the GEICO 500. ESPN will have live coverage of the race at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday. MRN Radio affiliates and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast. 

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