Kevin Harvick wins Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte - MotorSportsTalk

A late pit call proved to be the difference for Kevin Harvick, who took the lead from Kasey Kahne on the final restart with 11 laps to go and sped away to win the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Kahne had been holding a three-second lead over Harvick until debris on the backstretch brought out the caution at Lap 386. But while Kahne stayed out, the rest of the leaders decided to go to pit road for fresh tires. Harvick took two tires on his last stop of the night and when the green came back out on Lap 389, he quickly disposed of Kahne and went on to win by 1.49 seconds.

“It was a good strategy call there,” Harvick told Fox Sports in Victory Lane. “The 5 [Kahne] stayed out and we were able to have a little bit fresher tires and get in front of him on the restart.”

Kahne and his Hendrick Motorsports team were expecting the cars behind them to follow their lead and stay out as well.

“There’s a couple of guys that had just got tires, so we thought they’d stay out,” Kahne explained to Fox. “…That didn’t happened and the whole field pitted. We were in a tough spot. I bet if we pit, some of them don’t, so I think we’re just in a tough spot right there.”

Kurt Busch also had a chance to win and was leading the way when a three-car crash involving Aric Almirola, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin brought out a red flag with 74 to go. But shortly after the restart, Busch suffered a battery failure and was forced to the pits. However, the former Cup champion was still able to climb up to third position by the finish.

“We picked up the lead and the battery went dead – I don’t know what to think of that,” said Busch. “But we battled back. The guys changed it as fast as they could and we got third. We had a good car. You gotta be perfect to win these things and that was…close. We weren’t quite there.”

Denny Hamlin followed up his run to the Coke 600 pole with a fourth-place finish ahead of Joey Logano in fifth.

Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth were strong for the first half of the race, but did not have a say in the final outcome. After overcoming damage caused by a wayward guide rope for an overhead TV camera, Kyle lost his engine on Lap 251. As for Kenseth, he was caught in an incident at Lap 333 as he was hit from behind by Juan Pablo Montoya, who was trying to check up and avoid him while Jimmie Johnson was spinning out. Kenseth soldiered to a 15th place result.

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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