Kevin Harvick gets 9th win of the season by holding off Kyle Busch at Bristol
Kevin Harvick keeps winning this season. And Kyle Busch still hasn’t won in 2020.
Harvick held the 2019 champion at bay over the final 32 laps of Saturday night’s Bristol night race to get his ninth win of the season and keep Busch winless.
Harvick and Busch traded the lead thanks to lapped traffic over the final 88 laps of the race. Harvick led for 46 laps before Busch led for 10. But Harvick got back past Busch with 32 laps to go and was able to keep the 2019 Cup Series champion in second for the rest of the race in a fun battle between two of the Cup Series’ best drivers.
Harvick’s nine wins so far this season are the most he’s had in any season. And as Harvick is having the best season of his career, Busch has just seven more races in 2020 to avoid his first winless season ever in the Cup Series.
Saturday night’s race was the final race in the first round of the 10-race playoffs. Four drivers were eliminated from playoff contention while 12 will advance to the second round.
Blaney, Byron, Custer, DiBenedetto eliminated
Ryan Blaney is the biggest name to get eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Blaney entered the race 27 points out of 12th and ended up finishing 13th. That wasn’t good enough to move on.
He’s joined among the eliminations by William Byron, Cole Custer and Matt DiBenedetto. Byron was eliminated after apparently running into Christopher Bell when Joey Gase’s car slowed on track. We say apparently because NBC never showed a replay of Byron’s incident. Viewers at home just saw the crimpled front end of Byron’s car.
Just six cars on the lead lap
The race’s final caution came on lap 406 when Austin Dillon got into James Davison who in turn collected Reed Sorenson. That caution flag came during green-flag pit stops and meant that only six cars finished the race on the lead lap.
That’s the fewest cars to finish on the lead lap at Bristol since the 2003 spring race. That race also had six lead-lap finishers.
Playoff standings
1. Kevin Harvick, 3,067 points
2. Denny Hamlin, 3,048
3. Brad Keselowski, 3,305
4. Joey Logano, 3,022
5. Chase Elliott, 3,021
6. Martin Truex Jr., 3,016
7. Alex Bowman, 3,009
8. Austin Dilon, 3,005
9. Aric Almirola, 3,005
10. Kyle Busch, 3,004
11. Clint Bowyer, 3,004
12. Kurt Busch, 3,001
Race results
1. Kevin Harvick
2. Kyle Busch
3. Erik Jones
4. Tyler Reddick
5. Aric Almirola
6. Clint Bowyer
7. Chase Elliott
8. Chris Buescher
9. Ryan Preece
10. Michael McDowell
11. Joey Logano
12. Austin Dillon
13. Ryan Blaney
14. Matt Kenseth
15. Kurt Busch
16. Alex Bowman
17. Jimmie Johnson
18. Ty Dillon
19. Matt DiBenedetto
20. John Hunter Nemechek
21. Denny Hamlin
22. Bubba Wallace
23. Cole Custer
24. Martin Truex Jr.
25. Ryan Newman
26. Daniel Suarez
27. Gray Gaulding
28. Christopher Bell
29. Quin Houff
30. JJ Yeley
31. Joey Gase
32. Garrett Smithley
33. Corey LaJoie
34. Brad Keselowski
35. James Davison
36. Reed Sorenson
37. Timmy Hill
38. William Byron
39. Josh Bilicki
40. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
– – – – – – –
Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
More from Yahoo Sports: