Kevin Harvick might have been one spot short of the victory Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, but he wasn’t going to complain.
“I’m going to smile regardless – it’s the last superspeedway race and the car’s rolling and we almost won,” Harvick said. “I’m pretty happy.”
The No. 4 was clear of the field going down the backstretch on the final lap before Ryan Blaney jumped to the inside lane and pulled even going into Turn 3. Blaney was clear of Harvick through Turns 3 and 4, but the Stewart-Haas Racing driver pulled back alongside Blaney through the tri-oval.
It was a drag race to the finish line between the two with Blaney victorious by inches. Harvick lost the momentum as Ford teammate Riley Herbst, who was behind Harvick, was spun by Corey LaJoie.
“I was just late coming back up (in front of Blaney), and luckily, [William Byron] wound up being a good pusher as well, and then we wound up back in front (of Blaney),” said Harvick of the last lap. “You’re just trying to play the lines. I didn’t want the bottom to get a big run, and the way it all cycled out there, we were in a good spot until Riley got turned in the middle of the tri-oval there.
“At that point, I was kind of all alone with two of them pushing on the bottom. Just a little bit short.”
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Harvick led 11 laps in his final start at Talladega Superspeedway, where he won in 2010. The runner-up effort was his first top-five finish at the track since the spring of 2021.
“I just hope the fans and everybody appreciates that we’re racing as hard as we can to win and not just riding around,” Harvick said. “We haven’t rode around all year and just wanted to go out and try to put a good show on for the fans that show up in each market, do the best that we can. The Talladega fans always show up great for us, and today, we just came up a little short.”
Since being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, Harvick has finished sixth and second. The superspeedway races have been amongst his best chances for a victory.
“Our cars drive really good,” Harvick said. “The Fords are really fast on the superspeedways and ours drives well, pushes well, got pushed well, and we’ve been in contention in just about all of these races, and you just got to cycle through them to win some here and there. It’s a good way to end it.”
Harvick is winless in his final season as a Cup Series driver. There are five races left to visit victory lane for potentially the final time.
“They (fans) might have torn it down,” Harvick said had he won Sunday. “That would have been great. Talladega has been so up and down through the years. We’ve had some great moments and some bad moments. The last superspeedway race and we went out with everything rolling, so that’s a good thing.”