No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet
Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway
Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
• Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet team rebounded from trouble on pit road and an early race spin to finish fourth in Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.
• Harvick started the race in 17th position and had moved up to 13th when crew chief Gil Martin called him to pit road at lap 22 under the first caution. He restarted from the 19th spot on lap 25 and was running inside the top 10 in just seven laps. A slow pit stop on the subsequent trip down pit road at lap 35 left Harvick mired back in 21st position.
• On lap 58, cars at the front of the field made contact and as Harvick attempted to slow down, the No. 5 car made contact with the No. 29 Chevrolet, which sent Harvick spinning and damaged the No. 29 car’s left-rear quarter panel. The team pitted multiple times under the caution period to repair the damage and he restarted 31st.
• Shortly after the field took the green, the caution flag waved yet again as 14 cars were involved in a big wreck on the backstretch. Harvick made it through the carnage without any additional damage to the No. 29 Chevrolet. The race was red flagged for 14 minutes to clean up the track and Harvick restarted in 14th position when the field took the green flag on lap 72.
• Fast work by the No. 29 pit crew gained Harvick six positions on pit road at lap 128, moving him up to the fifth spot. He remained in the top six as green flag pit stops started at lap 184. Harvick was credited with leading a lap as the field cycled through pit stops and was back in fifth position when the caution flag waved on lap 218. Another fast stop by the No. 29 crew put Harvick in third position at lap 225.
• The No. 29 Chevrolet remained in the top four until the next round of green-flag stops. A couple of the other teams elected to take only two tires during that sequence of stops, while the No. 29 team changed all four. That combined with a problem on the right-front during the stop dropped Harvick back to sixth position when the caution flag waved at lap 285.
• The field took the green at lap 290 and in the closing laps Harvick raced his way up to fourth position.
• Jeff Gordon took his No. 24 Chevrolet to Victory Lane at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday and scored his first win in 66 races. Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Harvick and Ryan Newman rounded out the top five.
• Following Sunday’s race, Kyle Busch holds a three-point lead over his brother, Kurt, in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver point standings. Tony Stewart, A.J. Allmendinger and Gordon complete the top five.
• Harvick’s fourth-place run at Phoenix moved him up 15 spots in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver point standings to 22nd position. He’s currently one point out of the top 20 and 19 markers back from 12th position.
• 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.
Kevin Harvick on his finish at Phoenix:
It seems like you were beat up and turned around early in this race. “Yeah, we had a great Jimmy John’s Chevrolet today. Like you said, we got ourselves a little bit behind and then got in a wreck and just had to fight through there at the end. So it was a good day for everybody. Everybody did a great job keeping the fenders off the tires. I wish we could have had the car straight there at the end to race with those guys, but we’ll take a top five and get out of here.”
You had to struggle through some adversity today. How bad did you want the win knowing this track is going to change next time we come back here? “First off I’ve just got to thank everybody from Jimmy John’s and Budweiser and Chevrolet and everybody from RCR for everything they do. We had a weird day. We wrecked once and about wrecked again and then got into it with a couple of cars and caved in both front fenders. I wish we could have raced the car and not been torn up. All-in-all everything went well. This is what we expect every week. Everybody on this No. 29 team does a good job, and we know how we need to race. The guys on the pit crew did a great job on pit road for the most part of the day. Once they get that consistency down of working with each other on a week-to-week basis, they’re going to be hard to beat. It was a great day for everybody on our team. They did a great job. I think I got into a couple little bang ups and we got ourselves behind. In the end we were able to keep the fenders off the tires and get a top-five finish. So, it was a great day for us.
“With the track, it’s one of those deals where you wish they didn’t have to tear it up, but its lifespan is over and we’ll see how the computer models generate a new track design.”
The following is the finish position of the other beverage-sponsored cars participating in the Subway Fresh Fit 500:
• Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 4 Red Bull Toyota, finished sixth.
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 88 National Guard/AMP Energy Chevrolet team finished 10th.
• Matt Kenseth and the No. 17 Crown Royal Ford team finished 12th.
• Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, finished 15th.
• Brian Vickers and the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota team finished 30th.
• Robby Gordon and the No. 7 SPEED Energy/Bashas’ Dodge team finished 32nd.
The following is the finish position of the other Richard Childress Racing teams participating in the Subway Fresh Fit 500:
• Paul Menard, driver of the No. 27 Vertis/Menards Chevrolet finished 17th.
• Jeff Burton and the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet team finished 26th.
• Clint Bowyer and the No. 33 Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet team finished 27th.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams will travel to Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week for Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400. Friday’s practice session starts at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT and will air live on SPEED. The afternoon’s qualifying session airs live on SPEED starting at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT. On Saturday, teams will have one practice session that is scheduled to start at 10:10 a.m. PT. SPEED will broadcast the practice at 6 p.m. ET. FOX will provide the live broadcast of Sunday’s race starting with the pre-race show at 2:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. PT. MRN Radio and SIRIUS NASCAR Radio will provide the live radio broadcast.