Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Hunting Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), experienced a mechanical issue that resulted in a 38th-place finish Sunday in the postponed Bank of America 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
Harvick started from the pole position in a race that was originally scheduled for Saturday night, but torrential rain from Hurricane Matthew forced the race to be postponed and rescheduled for Sunday afternoon.
The 2014 Sprint Cup champion led the first 12 laps of the race, but a loose handling condition dropped him to third by the competition caution on lap 25. Harvick then brought the Busch Hunting Chevrolet to pit road for adjustments and restarted in third on lap 31.
The Bakersfield, California, native continued in the top-five and raced his way back up to second before returning to pit road under green-flag conditions on lap 113. He returned to the racetrack following the stop and raced his way back to the eighth position. When a caution came out during the pit cycle, he fell a lap down to the leaders. He was awarded the free pass as the first car a lap down and restarted the race in seventh.
Harvick once again continued his march toward the front and had made his way up to fourth when he told the team over the radio that he was experiencing mechanical issues. He brought the No. 4 Chevrolet to pit road so the team could take a closer look. The racecar was taken to its garage stall for further review, and it was determined that repairs could not be completed in time for Harvick to return to the race.
“It just suddenly shut off, and the things that it points to are no oil pressure,” said Harvick, who has three points-paying Sprint Cup wins at Charlotte Motor Speedway to his credit. “It’s definitely not a power issue with the battery or anything like that. They are trying to diagnose it. I hate it for everybody on our Busch team; they made some great adjustments today and got our car back where we needed to be to run up front, and everything was going fine. Lots of things can go wrong, and today they did.”
The dozen laps Harvick led to start the race brought his 2016 season total to 1,231.
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