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Kevin Harvick still looking for breakthrough win at Texas Motor Speedway

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Parker Kligerman shows us everything we need to know about restarts at Texas Motor Speedway ahead of the weekend's AAA Texas 500 and Steve Letarte says the toughest thing about the track is there's nowhere to hide.

While Jimmie Johnson has had a stranglehold on Chase races at Texas Motor Speedway since 2012, it has been a different story for Kevin Harvick.

Harvick enters the AAA Texas 500 as the only Chase driver without a victory at Texas. Johnson, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, and Denny Hamlin have multiple wins at Texas, while Kurt Busch and Joey Logano have been to victory lane once.

Texas is also one of four tracks Harvick does not have a Sprint Cup Series victory. However, he has finished second at Texas twice, and both of those finishes were to Johnson in fall of 2014 and the spring of 2015.

In fact, the connection between Johnson and Harvick goes a bit further:


  • Harvick has finished second to Johnson in five of Johnson’s last eight wins at 1.5-mile tracks
  • Since moving to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014, Harvick has earned 23 runner-up finishes, with eight of those being to Johnson (35 percent)
  • In their careers, Johnson and Harvick have finished 1-2 on 14 occasions, but Harvick was the winner only two of those 14 times and both wins came when he was driving for Richard Childress Racing

Johnson goes into this weekend having already locked his spot into the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway after winning at Martinsville Speedway. Harvick finished 20th and sits sixth on the Chase grid. He is 16 points out of a transfer spot with Texas and Phoenix International Raceway ahead.

But not all is lost for Harvick at Texas.

While winless in the Sprint Cup Series, Harvick does have 15 top-10 finishes in 27 starts at Texas. He also has six top-five finishes with 116 laps led and 111 of those laps have come in his last five starts.

Harvick’s numbers in the Xfinity and Truck Series are even better. Harvick has won five Xfinity races at Texas in 18 starts, as well as one Truck race in four starts.

As for Harvick’s most recent run at Texas, he finished 10th in the spring Sprint Cup race.

Follow @KellyCrandall