Jeff Gordon wins at Dover as Kevin Harvick has tire issue
Three of the best and most consistent drivers throughout the first 26 races won the first three races of the Chase
After Kevin Harvick, the day’s dominant driver, had a left-front tire problem at Dover, Jeff Gordon took advantage for his fifth Dover win and his first since 2001 at the concrete oval.
Gordon is the third driver to win in the first three Chase races. The first was won by Brad Keselowski, who finished second to Gordon. The second, last week at New Hampshire, was won by Joey Logano. Keselowski has five wins this season. Gordon and Logano now have four each. They’re the three winningest drivers in the Cup Series this season and, had the Chase not been in effect, all would be in the top four in the points.
The race at Dover was the final race in the first round of the Chase. After the third race, the field was set to be whittled from 16 drivers to 12. The four drivers missing the next round of the Chase after Dover are AJ Allmendinger, Aric Almirola, Greg Biffle and Kurt Busch.
At Kansas, the 12 remaining drivers all will have their points total reset to 3,000 and after the next three races the field will be whittled to eight title contenders.
The win officially advanced Gordon to the next round of the Chase, but it’s a moot point. Barring disaster, Gordon was a lock to advance among the 12 drivers moving on in the Chase for the Sprint Cup and he would have been alive for the title at Kansas whether he was second, fifth, or tenth.
“I don’t know what happened to Kevin Harvick, that was unfortunate for him,” Gordon said. “He was the class of the field. We tuned it to try to compete with him. When I saw him go out I knew we could compete with [Keselowski]. [Keselowski] was really good on short runs but we could run him down. Of course he made us work for it there at the end because he was so good on the short runs.”
The run to the finish wasn’t a short one, however. The last pit stops came under green with approximately 70 laps to go and when they were done, Gordon had a 2+ second lead over Keselowski and maintained position the rest of the way.
Outside of the drama surrounding the final Chase spots for drivers near the 12th position in points and in the middle of the pack, the only real drama was for Harvick’s flat tire. The problem, which happened right after a set of green flag pit stops, was the last caution flag of the day. And it was yet another crazy issue for Harvick, who has had great runs derailed in seemingly innumberable ways in 2014.
“It knocked the inner valve stem off the left front,” Harvick said. “A lugnut got in-between the wheel and the brake rotor and knocked the valve stem out. Crazy. Handing out early Christmas presents for people; winning races that we should be winning.”
The flat tire didn’t completely ruin his day though. Harvick stayed on the lead lap through the caution flag and ended up 13th.
Jimmie Johnson, the dominant driver at Dover in recent history, finished third. Logano was fourth while Matt Kenseth was fifth.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
