In a year full of second-place finishes, Kevin Harvick finishes second again

HOMESTEAD, Florida – The theme of Kevin Harvick’s season continued Sunday night at Homestead.

The 2014 Sprint Cup Series champion picked up his 13th second-place finish of the season in the Ford 400. The driver that beat him? Kyle Busch, one of the three drivers he was racing for the title, meaning Harvick ends the year as the No. 2 driver in the points standings.

“It’s been a great couple years, and I know we’re disappointed about finishing second tonight, but it’s kind of the theme of the year, finishing second,” Harvick said.

Harvick was multiple seconds behind Busch as the laps wound down Sunday night. With the race in the middle of a long green flag run, the chances of Harvick catching Busch seemed slim. But with 10 laps to go, a caution came for debris on the frontstretch. Harvick restarted behind Busch on the outside line on the race’s final restart. He had a chance to win the race.

He didn’t have the car to do it. Busch got the lead out of turns 1 and 2 on the restart and started pulling away. As the laps wound down, Busch’s interval on Harvick would grow by three-tenths of a second each lap. Not only did Busch have clean air at the front of the field, he had a faster car outright.

“Our car fired off good,” Harvick said. “We were able to go through traffic good at the beginning, but as the night went, it seemed like [Busch] got better, and we just got — we didn’t get any better. We just stayed the same and never could fix the problems that we had.”

Harvick started the season with two-straight second-place finishes at Daytona and Atlanta. He ends the season with two straight as well after finishing second at Phoenix the week before. Per NASCAR, his 13 second-place runs are the most in the Cup Series since Bobby Allison had 15 in 1970. Guess what? Allison finished second that season too.