By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
The day ended early at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for both Erik Jones and Kevin Harvick.
On Lap 147, a right-front tire went down on the No. 4 machine of Harvick. The cut tire sent him heading towards the wall. As he was riding the outside SAFER Barrier, Jones had no place to go and ran into the back of the No. 4.
Harvick was running at the front of the field for most of the day in Las Vegas. When Harvick put on the set of tires that went down, he knew that something was wrong.
“Well, there was something wrong from the time we put the tires on. It was like Russian roulette every time you put these piece of crap tires on and try to drive around the race track. One time it is tight, one time it is loose, one time they are blistered. We had a great car and then you put a set of tires on it and you can hardly make it through the field. I just hate it for everyone on our Mobil 1 Ford,” Harvick stated.
Goodyear’s Stu Grant refuted those claims by Harvick about his tires.
“We worked with the teams to try to get the load off the inside shoulder of the right front,” Grant said. “Everybody has been talking about the heat. … You’re looking at a 10 percent reduction in pressure increase [during a run] at 100 degrees versus 60 degrees. At the same pressure, you’re going to see five pounds less of buildup at 100 degrees than you are at 60.”
Luckily, Harvick had a 50-point cushion in the playoff standings. For Jones, he needs to accumulate as many points as he can in order to advance past the first round of the playoffs.
“It’s just unfortunate – we didn’t have the best-handling DeWalt Camry today and thought we were going to end up okay. We were going to finish top-10 no matter what. It’s unfortunate we had that happen, nothing Kevin (Harvick) could do and nothing I could do, unfortunately,” Jones stated.
“Not the situation we needed to be in, we didn’t have any bonus points and we’ve got some work to do now. I don’t think we have to win, but we definitely need to run really well here at Richmond and the Roval so we’ll keep at it, but it’s just unfortunate that had to happen.”
Harvick and Jones finished 39th and 40th, respectively.