Kevin Harvick Wins Crash-Filled Coke Zero 400 at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- In a test of survival as much as pure horsepower or tactical brilliance, Kevin Harvick held off Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon to win NASCAR's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

Almost two-thirds of the field were eliminated from contention in a 19-car pile-up with 12 laps remaining that red-flagged the race for 19 minutes and 34 seconds just after the clock struck midnight on the East Coast.

And just as the few survivors from that "Big One" were coming to the white flag to settle it among themselves on the final lap, Penske Racing teammates Sam Hornish and Kurt Busch collided with Elliot Sadler to force extra time -- a green-white-checkered finish.

Harvick, the Sprint Cup points leader, took the lead from Richard Childress Racing teammate Clint Bowyer on the ensuing restart, and held off a furious charge by Kahne and Gordon, who was looking for his first win in over a year. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Burton rounded out the top five. And even after Harvick took the checkered flag, cars were wrecking behind him.

"Every time I looked up it seemed like a crash was going on,'' said Kahne, whose runner-up finish was a career best here.

"I'm starting to get used to the fact that every race we go to is basically bumper cars at 190 mph,'' added Gordon, who moved into second place in the points standings.

The larger melee -- a chain-reaction accident in Turn 3 -- knocked out many of the Sprint Cup Series championship leaders and hobbled some of the early-race leaders including everyone from Jimmie Johnson to Denny Hamlin to Mark Martin, Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman.

"The energy inside the draft changes late in the race when you know every move you make could mean five or 10 points and you can feel it,'' said Johnson, who finished 31st and dropped to third in the standings, 225 points behind Harvick.




The race start was delayed almost two hours by rain. But when the field finally took the green flag, the early portions of the race were hardly the uncontrolled wreck-fest many predicted of the slippery summer conditions. Most of the 47 lead changes came early on in a respectable game of give-and-take.

The wrecking would come later. And this race had a Big One, a couple of Little Ones and several rating somewhere in the middle.

In many ways, the dramatic ending -- and record 18 different race leaders -- was an appropriate bookend for the final race on this 32-year-old surface. Its first event was the 1979 Daytona 500, considered one of the most dramatic races in NASCAR's history. The 2.5-mile superspeedway is set to be repaved following this weekend's on-track activities.

"Daytona has just been one of those magical places for us,'' said Harvick, who drives the No. 29 Shell Chevrolet. "Tonight, that wasn't the situation I wanted to be in. I wanted to be behind (Bowyer) him and push him. But we got split up on the restart and that was it.''

"I don't even care about the trophy, I want some of the pavement from the start-finish line.''

The result of so many race favorites falling out was a final leaderboard full of long-shots and drivers that weren't near the front of the field until the very end.

Reed Sorenson, Mike Bliss and Scott Speed finished eighth through 10th, for example, after having only two top-10 finishes combined all year. Robby Gordon, Steve Park and Kevin Conway were 12th, 13th and 14th.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who hadn't been close to the front all evening despite a win in Friday's Nationwide Series race, finished fourth.

"I've seen a lot of races that were pretty crazy,'' said Earnhardt. "You'd rather be good than lucky. ... but we'll take it. I don't know what was going on here tonight.''

The finish moved him up two spots into 11th position in the Chase for the Championship while his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin fell out of the top 12 in a race that heavily impacted the standings.

With only eight races remaining to set the 12-driver playoff field, Kyle Busch fell three positions to sixth place thanks to a double-wreck night and 40th-place finish. Gordon was a big winner, moving up three positions and overtaking Johnson for second place. Kahne was the night's biggest gainer, catapulting four positions to 16th in the standings to keep his Chase hopes alive. He trails 12th-place Carl Edwards by 154 points as the series heads to Chicago next week.