Car Deals

Martinsville, VA, United States (AHN Sports) – In one of the most unpopular moves of the season, Kevin Harvick passed Dale Earnhardt Jr. with four laps to go in winning Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway. The move made Harvick the series’ first repeat winner this season while extending Junior’s winless streak to 99 races.

Harvick, who won last week at California, passed Junior for the lead on Lap 496 of 500 and pulled away for the win in Goody’s Fast Relief 500 Sprint Cup. After finish second-to-last with an expired engine the season-opener at Daytona, Harvick is well on his way to championship contender again.

The victory was his 16th of the season and while Junior ran second it continued his resurgent season under a new crew chief and crew.

Earnhardt came around third-place finisher Kyle Busch with 21 laps to go and was out front until Harvick made what turned out to be the winning pass in Turn 2.

“You come to the race track every week to try and win the race. I don’t really keep count, but it has been a long time,” said Junior. “I feel closer to victory lane than I have I have in the most past.”

Juan Pablo Montoya ran fourth and Hendrick Motorsports put a pair of drivers in the top-five after four-time champion Jeff Gordon finished fifth.

Rounding out the top-10 finishers was Matt Kenseth, polesitter Jamie McMurray, David Ragan, Clint Bowyer and Mark Martin.

“It was a long day, but I felt like we had a top 10 car going into the race. If we could have caught a couple of lucky breaks, we might have had a shot to finish in the top three or four. We got hung out there on one of the green flag pit stops and got caught a lap down,” said Ragan. “We were fortunate to make it back and pass a lot of cars to end up in the top 10. It was certainly a good run.”

Martinsville dominators Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin ran 11th and 12th respectively in a race that was red-flagged for nearly 25 minutes to repair the Turn 3 wall after Martin Truex’s car damaged the SAFER barrier. The throttle on Truex’s No. 56 Toyota stuck Truex T-boned Kasey Kahne before slamming the wall.

The race also saw Paul Menard’s streak of five consecutive career-best finishes end when he finished 38th.

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