Race 12 of 22: Pocono Mountains 150 at Pocono Raceway
Track Specs: 2.5-mile tri-oval / 60 laps
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, 76 degreess
Race Winner: Kyle Busch
Harvick’s finish: 2nd
Kevin Harvick pitted late and utilized a trio of green-white-checkered restarts to rally for a second-place finish in Saturday’s Pocono Mountains 150 at Pocono Raceway. The effort gives Harvick his second top-two finish in as many NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts at the Tricky Triangle and marks the No. 00 Haas Automation team’s third top-two result in only seven races this season.
Early on, Harvick did as expected and worked his way into the top five after starting seventh. After a nifty move on a lap-10 restart to dart from fourth to second, the defending Sprint Cup champion held a spot in the top three for the majority of the race. Despite his ascent up the leaderboard, Harvick communicated that he needed the No. 00 truck to turn better to compete with Kyle Busch and Erik Jones for the race lead.
As the laps counted down with Harvick stuck in third, he and crew chief Joe Shear Jr. made the decision to pit under a lap-49 caution for four fresh tires, fuel and a track bar adjustment. Because the No. 00 team competes on a part-time basis, the decision was made exclusively to give Harvick an opportunity to pounce with fresh tires in the late laps.
Harvick restarted ninth at lap 53 and made no progress before the caution waved again two laps later. He took the first attempt at a green-white-checkered restart in ninth and vault his way to seventh after avoiding Jones’ spinning No. 4 truck. On the second green-white-checkered attempt, Harvick restarted sixth and jumped another two spots to fourth before yet another caution waved. On the final attempt at the restart, Harvick capitalized on being in the preferred outside lane to move from fourth to second at the checkered flag.
Busch led 53 of 69 laps to score the victory with Harvick, Tyler Reddick, Cameron Hayley and Austin Dillon rounding out the top five.
Kevin Harvick, driver No. 00 Haas Automation team
“I want to thank everybody on our Haas Automation team for hanging in there all weekend. We had a tough weekend just trying to get the truck to stay off the ground and really gathered a lot of notes and things for this team and Cole (Custer) for next year. We’ve definitely got a lot of work to do, but the guys hung in there and made something out of the weekend.”