Kevin Harvick won the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte, the second race of the Contender round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, on Saturday evening. This is his first win in the Cup series since Darlington in April. Harvick will now join Joey Logano in the Eliminator round, which begins at Martinsville on October 26.
The race's television coverage encountered an interesting situation when the race was about to begin. A TCU-Baylor college football game on ABC, the channel on which ESPN was broadcasting the race, went well over their time slot, and the beginning of the race was moved to ESPNews. But the Heat-Cavaliers NBA game in Brazil on that channel went into overtime, and the start of the race wound up on the ESPN3 online service. ABC finally joined the race in time for the lap 25 competition caution prompted by a rain shower earlier in the day.
Jeff Gordon and polesitter Kyle Busch traded the lead early in the going. Rookies Kyle Larson, Justin Allgaier, Austin Dillon and Michael Annett, Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin also led laps. Dale Earnhardt Jr., after leading briefly during the first caution, later had a broken shifter and fell to one lap down, leaving him in danger of elimination from the Chase. The race was marked by a crash involving Danica Patrick and her former teammate Ryan Newman, after Patrick was mad at points leader Joey Logano, as well as a heated radio disussion between Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus. Johnson later pitted from the top five with a few laps left, potentially costing him a good finish. Finally, Keselowski and Denny Hamlin had an altercation on the final lap, which carried over to the garage area with Hamlin's current teammate Matt Kenseth and former teammate Tony Stewart getting involved as well.
The Chase is now at its halfway point, with five races down and five to go. The Contender round ends next Sunday at Talladega, a track known for its unpredictable racing and huge crashes. There could be yet another shakeup in the Chase grid as four more drivers are about to be eliminated.
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