BROOKLYN, Mich. — Kevin Harvick capped his father-son weekend by dominating a race and putting 6-year-old son Keelan in the passenger seat to hold the flapping, checkered flag out of the window.
“That was definitely way up there on the bucket list,” Harvick said.
Harvick turned in another dominant performance Sunday, easily winning at Michigan International Speedway for his seventh NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season.
His No. 4 Ford finished more than three seconds ahead of Brad Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford in the Consumers Energy 400.
Points leader Kyle Busch finished third in his No. 18 Toyota – more than 4 seconds behind Harvick.
Busch has won six races this year and Martin Truex Jr. has finished first four times. The rest of the field has combined to win just six of 23 races.
Truex Jr. was 14th in the 40-car field in his No. 78 Toyota.
Keselowski said he couldn’t be more aggressive late in the 200-lap race because Harvick was so far ahead.
Austin Dillon, in the No. 3 Chevrolet, was fourth, followed by Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 Ford.
Harvick won each of three stages and led 108 laps, more than four times better than anyone else on the 2-mile oval.
Truex was running with the leaders during the second stage before running out of gas and going into the pits, which were closed. He was penalized for an uncontrollable tire and pushed to the back of the 40-car field.
Soon after a restart early in the race, William Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet got loose and made side-by-side contact with Truex to bring out another caution flag.
“Anything that could have went wrong did,” Truex said. “We got wrecked by a rookie mistake underneath us, and then ran out of gas. We could’ve won the second stage. We just didn’t have enough gas. The car was fast. We just couldn’t catch a break all day.”
Denny Hamlin led the field to the green flag for the second straight week, but his No. 11 Toyota could not stay ahead. He ended up eighth after finishing 13th in last week’s race at Watkins Glen.
Seven-time series champion Jimmie Johnson, who has not finished better than 10th in his last nine races and sits 14th in the standings, was running in the top 15 late in the race when a loose wheel led to an unscheduled pit stop and a 28th-place finish.
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