It was just Kevin Harvick’s day.
The No. 4 car won each of the first two stages of the AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover International Speedway, and then ran away with the third for his fourth win of the season and 41st win of his career.
He passed Kyle Busch for the most wins on the year with the victory.
Teammate Clint Bowyer led for much of the third stage and was in the lead before a rain delay with 82 laps to go, but this year’s winner at Martinsville got loose on a turn with 63 left and was passed by Harvick who coasted his way to victory.
“It’s fun racing your teammate,” Harvick told FS1 after the race. “That says a lot about our company and one of your good friends as well.”
Stewart-Haas Racing put three drivers in the Top 5 for the first time ever.
Joey Logano, who won at Talladega April 29, was in third for much of the third stage, but had a problem with his right front tire out of the rain delay and fell back to 16th because of it. He had a very hard time moving up after that and finished 13th.
Daniel Suarez tied his best career finish by finishing in third. His one other third-place finish came at Watkins Glen in August 2017.
But it was Kyle Busch who stole many of the headlines as the man who was tied for the most wins this season coming into Dover (3) had to pull out of the race with 124 laps to go as he had a problem with his driveshaft which resulted in his car spewing oil and parts resulting in a caution.
“It was a Top 3 car,” Busch told FS1 after he had to pull out of the race. “I felt like, barring some different clean air circumstances and different restart lines and stuff I felt like I could get up there and race with the (No.) 4 or the (No.) 2, but as bad as that vibration kept getting throughout the race there it was just too hard to handle.”
.@KyleBusch reports a driveshaft failure and he takes his @JoeGibbsRacing machine to the garage. pic.twitter.com/skPn1pBLy7
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 6, 2018
This was Busch’s first DNF since the 2017 Talladega Fall Race. However, he has not finished three of the last four races at Dover.
Toyota did not lead a lap for the first time since 2017 in Atlanta.
NASCAR results AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover
1. Kevin Harvick
2. Clint Bowyer
3. Daniel Suarez
4. Martin Truex Jr.
5. Kurt Busch
6. Brad Keselowski
7. Denny Hamlin
8. Ryan Blaney
9. Jimmie Johnson
10. Kyle Larson
11. Aric Almirola
12. Chase Elliott
13. Joey Logano
14. William Byron
15. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
16. Jamie McMurray
17. Kasey Kahne
18. Erik Jones
19. Trevor Bayne
20. Chris Buescher
21. AJ Allmendinger
22. Michael McDowell
23. Alex Bowman
24. Ty Dillon
25. Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr.
26. Austin Dillon
27. David Ragan
28. Ross Chastain
29. Matt DiBenedetto
30. Gray Gaulding
31. Landon Cassill
32. Reed Sorenson
33. Ryan Newman
34. Paul Menard
35. Kyle Busch
36. Cody Ware
37. Derrick Cope
38. Corey Lajoie
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
