In what is becoming routine in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Kevin Harvick paced Thursday’s test at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a lap at 190.148 mph. He was the only driver to top 190 mph in the four-hour session.
Last Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, Harvick was the class of the field in leading 224 of 312 laps and winning The Profit on CNBC 500 at the one-mile track. Harvick also topped the speed chart in both Saturday practice sessions at PIR.
Harvick’s lap on Thursday was just a few ticks short of the track qualifying record of 190.456 mph set by Kasey Kahne in 2012, but the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing struggled to find speed in the early going.
“We spent a couple hours trying to get things situated and trying to get the balance of the car right,” Harvick said. “We felt pretty good about after that. We changed a lot of stuff and did a lot of different things to the car. It felt like we made good headway in the end and hope we can progress on that (Friday) and make it even better.”
Harvick indicated that NASCAR’s new competition package for the Gen-6 car has added a degree of adjustability.
“We have a lot of things we can adjust on the cars this year, and a lot of those adjustments (are in) really sensitive spots—the jackscrews and things are much more sensitive than they have been in the past. NASCAR has given us some different things that will help us to be able to make bigger swings at the car during the race.”
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