Kevin Harvick wins Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500

HAMPTON — Atlanta Motor Speedway and NASCAR survived some rainy weather that came in early Sunday morning, which altered the schedule for the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. In the end, Kevin Harvick won the race after an eventful day of racing.

The race didn’t start until after 3 p.m. following a lengthy weather delay. Harvick, who has led more laps than any driver at AMS, led 173 laps Sunday to push that total to 1,152. It was his first win at AMS since 2001.

Many alumni of Thursday Thunder, a racing series held annually at AMS, didn’t fare well at the start of the race. At the end of the first stage, Joey Logano was 10th with Ryan Blaney running 13th. They were followed by Chase Elliott (17th), William Byron (25th), Chris Buescher (26th,) Darrell Wallace Jr. (30th) and David Ragan (31st).

In the second stage of the race, Harvick emerged as the class of the field despite a caution that shook up the running order at the top. Thursday Thunder alumni remained were mired deep in the pack except for Logano, who ran fourth. Blaney was just outside the top 10 in 11th place. Brad Keselowski won the second stage.

The final stage featured some drama as rain threatened to end the race early. Several drivers used different strategies to try to get ahead, but everything changed when Trevor Bayne blew an engine to bring out a yellow flag. Even more chaos ensued during the caution as Wallace Jr. collided with Ricky Stenhouse Jr., leaving the former with damage.

With an impending restart and fresh tires on the car, Logano appeared primed to take the lead as he sat in fourth place with 20 laps remaining. However, Logano fell as far back as ninth before battling back to sixth place.

“You know, it’s crazy, I just didn’t have the best restart and kind of got used up and fell back to eighth or ninth,” Logano said. “We fought back to sixth and I was better than the 78 (Martin Truex Jr.), but I just couldn’t get by him — it was just hard for me to make the pass. So, overall it was a decent day. We fought hard and we tried really hard and we had an uneventful day, which is nice. When you have a lot of pit stops, you have a lot of opportunity for mistakes, so I’m proud of that.”

Logano said that running near the top 10 during the race felt slightly empty after not taking advantage of his position after the final restart.

“It’s nice to have a solid finish and run decent, but the fact of the matter is the whole field isn’t even close to Kevin (Harvick) right now,” Logano said. “We gotta find some speed in ourselves to try and beat him at his home turf here.”

Elliott finished strong, eventually coming in 10th place at his home track despite a slow start. Blaney finished the night in 12th, while Byron finished as the highest rookie in 18th.

“It was fun,” Byron said of returning back to AMS. “We started the race so loose and I had to work on dropping the track bar quicker. I just didn’t do it quick enough, not used to having that. We gained on it a lot — by our seventh or eighth pit stop we were at our best potential and from there we leveled off. We tried to find rear grip but it was overall fun.”

Keselowski finished in second, Clint Bowyer came in third, Denny Hamlin was fourth and Truex Jr. placed fifth. Seven-time Monster Energy Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson finished four laps down in 27th. Ragan rebounded to finish his 400th career race in 23rd, Buescher came in 25th and Wallace Jr.’s damaged car limped in at 32nd.

NASCAR heads west to Las Vegas Motor Speedway next week for the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube.

Adam Hagy