Kevin Harvick was upset even after finishing second in Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
A myriad of problems on pit road including a lug nut getting caught in a jack, a loose wheel, an outside half of the pit box tire violation and pit gun issues added up to Harvick’s frustration level boiling over in his runner-up performance.
“We did overcome a lot,” Harvick said after finishing second behind Kyle Busch on Sunday. “That was unfortunate. We had a pathetic day on pit road, two days on pit road because of pit guns.
“When you have a pit gun problem like we have multiple times and been able to overcome it and then today we couldn’t overcome it. Time after time you can’t get the lug nuts tight because the pit guns don’t work.”
Even with the multiple challenges on pit road, Harvick was able to make up lost laps and stay in contention for his fourth win of the young season. He lined up outside Busch on the day’s last restart and even though Harvick wasn’t able to wrestle the top spot away, he stayed in hot pursuit of the leader.
Ultimately he ran out of laps and just couldn’t climb all the way back up what he felt was a self-inflicted mountain caused by mistakes and problems on pit road.
“Kyle’s car was good enough to where he could get out there and run pretty good in clean air,” Harvick explained. “It took us the whole run to be able to get everything back together and do everything we needed to do to make up a position. We weren’t as good behind him as we were in front of him. His car would run fast enough.
“There is only so much you can make up.”
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