Dominant season comes to a close for Harvick, Elliot wins the title

Calvin Darnell, Staff Writer

NASCAR’s season came to a close on Sunday, Nov 8. However, one of the key drivers in the Cup Series was not even in the championship four. Kevin Harvick of Stewart-Haas Racing failed to make the final four for the first time since the new playoff format was introduced in 2014. However, this year was much different from his previous years.

Harvick had a magical 2020 season. In the first four races before the shutdown, Harvick had four top 10 finishes and two finishes in the top 5. This included a fifth place finish at the Daytona 500 and a second place finish at Phoenix. It was during this two-month long lockdown that Harvick prepared for the season of his life. 

The former Cup Series champion won the very first race back winning the Real Heroes 400. Then he had his longest losing streak of the entire season. After running very well in the next four races, Harvick won Atlanta for the third time in his career. It would only take four more races to get back to victory lane as Harvick won Pocono for the first time in his career. He got second in the next race; however, the race after, he won the Brickyard 400 (one of the premier races of the season). Harvick had a total of seven wins and 17 top 5’s in the regular season alone. This won Harvick the regular season championship and established him as the championship favorite. 

Starting off the playoffs with a win, Harvick dominated the first two rounds of the playoffs, easily making it to the round of eight. It was the round of eight that would be his downfall however. Dominating the Kansas race, Harvick finished second to Joey Logano in a very hard fought race. Going into Texas, Harvick was easily the favorite. Harvick started in first and won this exact race three years in a row. Fate had other ideas however. With Harvick leading, rain would start to pick up at Texas Motor Speedway and before NASCAR could stop the race, Harvick hydroplaned and hit the wall. A few days later, they got to finish the race and Harvick would finish a dismal sixteenth. Martinsville was the last race before the championship and although Harvick was relatively safe, he still needed a good race to make it to the final four. However, Harvick’s car was very tight, making it almost uncontrollable at this certain race track. In addition, Matt Kenseth accidentally made contact with Harvick, cutting one of his tires. Harvick would have to pit and go two laps down. Luckily he would eventually find his footing and unlapped himself, even making it into the top ten. On the final lap, Harvick had only one car to pass in order to make it into the final four. Going into the final turn, Harvick was faster but did not have enough time to pass Kyle Busch. Therefore, he turned into him in order to wreck him. Karma would catch up with Harvick however as Busch spun around fine and finished ninth. Harvick, who had nine wins, 20 top 5’s, and 27 top 10’s, did not even make it to the final four. This is one of the most dominant seasons in the past 20 years, but it would end with a mere 5th place finish.

The final race of the season did have Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, and eventual winner Chase Elliott. The final race was held at Phoenix and whoever out of the aforementioned drivers finished highest would win the championship.

A bit of controversy came before the race even started. Driver Chase Elliott’s car failed pre-race inspection twice, and he had to start the race in last place. This, however, would set up one of the more memorable championship races to date. Logano led most of the laps early on. He eventually got caught by teammate Brad Keselowski however. The big storyline was that Chase Elliott made it from 39th to tenth within only 27 laps. The first stage had the championship drivers finish Logano, Hamlin, Elliott, and Keselowski in that order. 

Elliott dominated most of stage two but would be passed on the last lap by Keselowski. After 190 laps, the drivers held the first through fourth positions. Keselowski was out front followed by Elliott, Logano, and Hamlin. 

Elliot led most of the rest of the race. At only 24 years old, Chase Elliott added his name to the history books as the third youngest driver to ever win a championship. This would also be Hendrick Motorsports’s thirteenth championship, achieving this in the last race of Jimmie Johnson’s career. Jimmie won a record seven championships with them and had 83 total wins.