Kevin Harvick has accomplished what many thought was impossible: Go from worst to first under NASCAR’s 2011 points system.
Harvick, who suffered engine failure in February’s Daytona 500, posted three points and left Daytona ranked 37th in the standings.
Now, 16 races later, Harvick tops the charts with nine races remaining in the Race to the Chase following his seventh-place finish in last weekend’s Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola. He displaces Carl Edwards, whose 10-race run heading the points ended with an early accident and 37th-place finish.
Harvick doesn’t just have the points lead. With three victories – each worth three bonus points once the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup begins Sept. 18 at Chicagoland Speedway – the Bakersfield, Calif. veteran becomes the mid-season favorite to end Jimmie Johnson’s five-season title run. Johnson is sixth with one victory.
This marks the fourth season Harvick has led the standings. He ranked first after 19 of the 2010 season’s first 26 races eventually finishing a career-high third in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Several drivers – Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon, both two-time winners – solidified their hold on top-10 rankings after Daytona’s summer race. Others, among them Dale Earnhardt Jr., moved in the opposite direction. Earnhardt, third as recently as mid-June, is 39 points ahead of 11th-place Denny Hamlin, who has a possible wild card victory on which to fall back.
The run-up to Chase cut-down Sept. 10 at Richmond International Raceway will be pivotal for other competitors as well, among them two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle, who has made the Chase in each of the past three years. Both still are winless in 2011 and are five and 25 points, respectively, out of the top 10.
Wild cards currently are held by Hamlin and Coke Zero 400 winner David Ragan. Two of the season’s other 12 winners, Brad Keselowski and Regan Smith are outside the top 20 in points and aren’t now qualified for wild card consideration.
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