Kevin Harvick celebrates his dominating CampingWorld.com 200 victory at Gateway International Raceway Saturday. Photo by Bill Barrett
MADISON, Ill. – After earning his first career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series pole position Friday at Gateway International Raceway, Kevin Harvick was able to race for the win Saturday afternoon in the CampingWorld.com 200. The race was postponed from its original start time of 8 p.m. Friday after an electrical feeder line failure in East St. Louis.
With the win, Harvick now has more NASCAR wins than anyone in Gateway’s 14-year history (3) and joins Greg Biffle as the only drivers with wins in both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the NASCAR Nationwide Series. “Happy” did it in style, dominating the race with 143 laps led of the 160 total circuits and crossed the finish line nearly five-and-a-half seconds ahead of second-place Brad Keselowski in his No. 29 Ram Truck.
“I’m just proud of everybody of putting the effort into this truck and getting it ready for the race today and everybody at (Richard Childress Racing) for getting the chassis done,” Harvick said during his post-race press conference. “It was just a great team performance. Obviously, our trucks haven’t run as well as I expected them to run in the last few weeks and today I felt like I had a great truck.”
For the second time this season, Harvick earned a perfect driver rating of 150.0, a feat he also accomplished earlier this season in Atlanta. It is his ninth career win in the series as a driver.
Rounding out the top-five was last year’s event runner-up, Johnny Sauter; former Gateway winner Todd Bodine; and Sauter’s ThorSport teammate Matt Crafton.
Only two other drivers were able to lead laps over the course of the race with Aric Almirola leading once for 16 laps and four-time and defending NCWTS champion Ron Hornaday leading a single lap. The race was completed in just under two hours and saw five cautions for a total of 27 laps.
One of those cautions involved an incident between 2009 race winner Mike Skinner and Ricky Carmichael. Skinner drifted into Carmichael between Turns 3 and 4, putting Carmichael into the wall. As Carmichael came to a rest in the grass, Jeffrey Earnhardt, son of Kerry Earnhardt and grandson of the late Dale Earnhardt, crashed hard into him. Both Earnhardt, making his Truck Series debut Saturday, and Carmichael were evaluated and released from the infield care center.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series next sees action Friday night at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Clermont, Ind. NASCAR returns to Gateway International Raceway Oct. 23 for the NASCAR Nationwide Series’ second trip to the St. Louis area. Tickets can be purchased either by calling 866-35-SPEED or by visiting GatewayRaceway.com.
Race fans can follow all the action throughout the season at Gateway International Raceway on its official Twitter site at Twitter.com/GatewayRaceway and its official page on Facebook, Facebook.com/GatewayRaceway.
