Harvick wins Coca-Cola 600

McClatchy Newspapers

CONCORD, N.C

Kevin Harvick zipped by Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway Sunday night.

Earnhardt’s National Guard Chevy ran out of gas as he approached the final turn, to open things up for Harvick.

David Ragan, Joey Logano and Kurt Busch rounded out the top 5.

Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Lowe’s Chevy went up in smoke with four laps to go, bringing out the 14th caution of the night. It set up the wild finish in which Earnhardt seemed poised to break a winless streak that stretched over 100 races.

It was a night of attrition in this, the longest race of the NASCAR season, with 14 caution flags and a flurry of drivers getting caught up in the bump and grind.

Jamie McMurray was the first front-line driver to drop out, after his Chevy had an engine failure. McMurray lasted 181 laps.

“The car ran really well all night and it ran really well on the restart,” he said. “It wasn’t hot, the oil temp wasn’t hot. Something broke big in the motor. You can break valve springs and stuff and kind of baby it the remainder of the race. But, whatever broke just then was really big.”

Halfway through the race, nine drivers had taken a swipe at the lead, with 17 lead changes all-together.

Paul Menard was the next driver to have problematic issues, when his car spun out of control and spun down the apron, catching Martin Truex and Brian Vickers in the crazy flurry. All were able to get back racing.

And then Landon Cassill went airborne into the infield grass with 104 laps to go, as he got tangled up with Regan Smith. He was OK, but his car was done for the night.

Next up: Landon Cassill and Mark Martin got jammed up into the wall, as Martin’s car got the brunt of it on the inside portion. Ryan Newman was part of the collateral damage.

“It’s s shame,” Martin said. “Everybody was working hard and want to finish these things off.”

“Tough way to end a good night,” Cassill said.

All these problems were reflective of a race that is a survival of the fittest — lasting four-plus hours, a total of 600 miles.

The grind of the Coca-Cola 600 was unbearable at times.

Temperatures in cars reached as high as 137 degrees (Tony Stewart’s number). Debris was flying all over the place. Casey Mears said just before the halfway point that there was so much debris and bits of tire in his eyes, “I can hardly open them.”

And then there was Greg Biffle, who managed to finish 13th despite issues with the driver cooling system in his car early in the race.

“The tape you put on the end of the hose folded over and I couldn’t get it on my helmet!” he screamed at his pit crew, dropping in a few expletives to punctuate his unhappiness in other conversations.

“We’ll talk about it Tuesday,” he said.

“The key is just really staying on the road all night long,” Jimmie Johnson said before the race. “It’s a very long race as we all know with being 600 miles, and you just can’t get caught up in things that happen too early. You can have trouble and there’s plenty of time to recover.”