Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 ditech Chevy for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), was the dominant car for the majority of the day at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Sunday’s Sylvania 300 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. But while leading the race with three laps remaining, Harvick ran out of fuel and needed a splash-and-go to bring home a 21st-place finish. Harvick brought the #4 Chevy to pit road for fuel only under caution on lap 212. As Harvick was pulling out of his pit stall, his exit was blocked by driver Kyle Larson as he pulled his #42 into his pit box. While the cars never made contact, the incident slowed Harvick’s progress off pit road, and the No. 4 restarted 12th on lap 219. Harvick had raced his way back up to fifth by the following caution on lap 239. The team opted to stay out under the caution and restart in the third position on lap 243. By lap 252, Harvick had the #4 Chevy back in the lead and was doing his best to save fuel while holding off #20-Matt Kenseth and working his way through lap traffic. With just three laps remaining, the #4 Chevy ran out of fuel and was forced to pit road for a splash of fuel to finish the race in the 21st position. “The good thing about these days is you have EFI (Electronic Fuel Injection) data to go back and look at,” crew chief Rodney Childers tweeted following the race. “By the data, (Harvick) saved double what we needed to make it to the end. It should have been a non-issue. Which is why we weren’t worried. It looked like for some reason it must have not got full on our last stop of the race or the fuel cell bladder is coming apart. All in all my engineers do a great job for me and hardly ever make any mistakes. They work their butts off to make sure this doesn’t happen. If anything showed we were taking a chance we would have pitted. On to Dover. It’s not over.”(SHR)(9-28-2015)
