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Kevin Harvick wins pole position for NASCAR’s Pennzoil 400

Updated March 2, 2019 - 12:11 am

Sometimes the pole position in NASCAR doesn’t go to the fastest driver.

On Friday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it went to the most clairvoyant.

“The fastest car will not get the pole today,” Kevin Harvick predicted before the cars rolled onto the track under mild and overcast skies.

Harvick earned the top spot for Sunday’s race with a qualifying lap of 180.517 mph. He said his No. 4 Ford was not the fastest car on the track.

“As a team we go out and play by the rules that are presented to us,” the defending race champion said with an impish smile. “As we talked about beforehand, it may not be the fastest car that gets the pole today.

“I’ll leave that up to you guys as to how to wrap your arms around it.”

A new high downforce rules package that makes drafting almost mandatory, combined with NASCAR’s three-round qualifying format under which the cars run together in traffic rather than one at time, turned qualifying into a high-speed chess match.

The 12 fastest qualifiers remained on pit road for most of the five-minute final session, hoping to time their exit to allow for two fast laps before the clock ran out. Harvick emerged from the pit road gaggle last. But that allowed him to slot into drafting position at the bottom of the track — exactly where he wanted to be.

Beaten by the clock

Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott posted last laps faster than Harvick’s, but they came after time ran out. Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin (180.457) will start second in a Toyota. Las Vegas native Kyle Busch will roll off third, also in a Toyota. Austin Dillon, who appeared to have the car to beat, settled for fourth in the No. 3 Chevrolet.

“It’s going to come down to timing and strategy,” Harvick said about his prequalifying mindset. “We worked on some things with our car and tried to do the right things and ended up in a good spot.”

When asked if he instinctively knew when to leave the pit lane, Harvick said, “No, I’m not that smart.

“That really comes down to the spotter and what he thinks, the time to come around, get out on the racetrack and make a lap and, you know, be able to make a second lap. We had talked about what I wanted to hear on the first lap coming through (turns) 3 and 4. What I wasn’t expecting was the 18 car (Busch) to slow down and fill the hole I wanted.”

That turned out to be a good thing with the clock ticking, Harvick said.

“I had to make some adjustments as to where I had to run on the racetrack, and running low probably got me to the start-finish on time — I didn’t know we were that close,” he said.

Neither, apparently, did Bowman, who just missed getting his final lap in under the gun. He thought he beat the clock, as did the Fox broadcast crew.

“It’s their sandbox, and we play in it,” said the young driver who will start 11th after getting caught out by NASCAR’s qualifying rules. “But it’s wrong … really frustrating. In my eyes, they’re wrong. It’s kind of (expletive).”

Harvick’s pole position was his 26th in 649 Cup Series races and first in 20 starts at LVMS. His speed was almost 11 mph slower than Ryan Blaney’s 2018 pole speed of 191.489.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.

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