By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Kevin Harvick entered Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway tied as the winningest driver of 2018, scoring eight wins alongside Kyle Busch.
Despite the year-long speed, Harvick was beaten by Joey Logano for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship. The No. 4 Ford of Harvick was behind on pace when it counted, finishing third in the 1-2-3-4 sweep for the Championship 4.
“We had a daytime racecar,” Harvick said. “As soon as it got dark, we never could get our car tightened up there at the end. They made a great call to put us in position to win the race and then the caution came out when the No. 2 car spun the No. 19 out.”
Following the late yellow, Harvick exited pit road fourth and was only able to squeeze by Busch to finish third behind Martin Truex Jr. and champion Joey Logano.
“Our strong point was not the restarts tonight,” he said. “We wound up on the wrong side of it.”
Adjusting his Stewart-Haas Racing Ford throughout the clean 400-miler, Harvick was still too behind once the sun went down.
“When it got dark, we just lost the rear grip and couldn’t get off the corner,” he said. “The balance was really good until it was dark outside, and we just never could get the rear grip back to where we needed to, and I couldn’t take off.”
The 2014 champion led 58 laps on the night and had this title chances hurt when the race’s final caution flew, setting up a restart with 15 laps to go.
“They put us in a position to win if the caution didn’t come out,” he said. “We had a shot there with 18 laps to go when the caution came out. It’s just the way it all shook out, the No. 22 could take off really good.”