Kevin Harvick reached a career milestone on Sunday at Darlington Raceway with his 50th career NASCAR Cup Series Victory. The win is Harvick’s second at Darlington and his first of 2020. Harvick led a race-high 159 laps en route to the victory.
Harvick told FOX Sports following the race, “I want to thank everybody from NASCAR and all the teams for letting us do what we do. I didn’t think it was going to be that much different, then we won the race and it’s dead silent out here. We miss the fans.”
Commenting on his milestone victory, “It’s a pretty big honor to win 50 races. I just have to thank my team guys for what they’re doing.”
Sunday’s race marked the return to non-virtual NASCAR-sanctioned competition since taking a COVID-19 induced hiatus in early March. Teams practiced social distancing and wore masks to protect the drivers and team members present.
Numerous teams honored medical personnel working on the frontlines of the pandemic. Harvick’s No. 4 Ford featured his friend, Dr. Josh Hughes, on the name rail.
Alex Bowman finished second, followed by Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott, and Denny Hamlin.
Jimmie Johnson led early and appeared poised to win the first stage of the race until contact with Chris Buescher caused Johnson’s No. 48 to careen into the inside retaining wall. Johnson was undoubtedly gutted following the wreck when he appeared poised to challenge for his first win in nearly three years.
William Byron was the stage one winner following Johnson’s wreck. Byron made contact with the wall later in the race which ultimately ended his chances of victory. Brad Keselowski won stage two and finished 13th.
Apart from Harvick’s milestone-reaching dominance, several other drivers had notable performances at Darlington. Tyler Reddick finished eighth for Richard Childress Racing while John Hunter Nemechek earned Front Row Motorsports’ first non-superspeedway top ten since 2016 with his ninth-place finish.
Matt Kenseth, who replaced recently fired Kyle Larson in the No. 42 at Chip Ganassi Racing, finished an impressive tenth in his first Cup Series race since the 2018 finale at Homestead.
The NASCAR Cup Series will be back in action at Darlington Raceway on Wednesday night for a 500-kilometer, 228 lap event. The starting lineup for the race will feature an invert of today’s top-20 finishers, while the remainder of the field will be set by their finish in today’s race.
Written by Greg Atkins
Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
