TALLADEGA, Ala. — Kevin Harvick executed the pass exactly how his team drew it up in the playbook.
With a last-second slingshot past Jamie McMurray, Harvick snapped a 115-race winless drought with a victory Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway. It was the payoff for perfect strategy devised in conversations over the weekend with crew chief Gil Martin and their Richard Childress Racing team.
Harvick lurked behind in traffic, trying to move his way into second place as the race hit the closing laps. His plan was to set himself up for one attempt at the lead, which he made roughly 500 yards from the finish line by sliding inside of McMurray then drag-racing him to the checkered flag.
“We made a plan, and I’m telling you, every piece of it played out exactly how we wanted to play it,” Harvick said. “Coming into the last lap, that’s exactly how we planned it out on paper.”
The win gave Harvick his first victory since the 2007 season-opening Daytona 500, and it came in the longest Talladega race in Sprint Cup history. Because NASCAR’s new overtime rule allows for three attempts at its version of overtime, the race went 12 laps past the scheduled distance of 188 trips around the 2.66-mile superspeedway.
It covered a record 88 lead changes among a record 29 drivers, and the final pass was the one that had everyone talking.
“I hate to show my age, but that was a tremendous pass just like the old days, like you would have seen Buddy Baker or Cale Yarborough,” Martin said. “That was a tremendous pass, and it was timed perfectly.”
• Brad Keselowski won the Nationwide Series race in a wild end to a NASCAR doubleheader.
It was nearly a replay of the Sprint Cup finish. McMurray got loose on the overtime laps, triggering a wreck that nearly sent Dennis Setzer over the fence.
Setzer went airborne, crashed into the safety fence and his car was on fire as it skidded down the track. It was similar to last year’s Cup race at Talladega when Carl Edwards sailed into the fence, allowing Keselowski to pull off the surprise win.
McMurray triggered the scary crash when he tried to squeeze in behind Harvick in a pack of traffic.
Ten drivers pulled double duty and drove about 850 miles after rain wiped out Saturday’s scheduled Nationwide race.
