Kevin Harvick spun on the last lap of Stage 2, Lap 150, resulting in a huge cloud of tire smoke that prompted a domino affect chain reaction wreck that involved a number of other cars and brought out a red flag race stoppage of the ISM Connect 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
“As I got sideways, tried to get the car whoa’d down and pointed in the right direction and it snapped back the other way,” Harvick said. “Once I turned back right, I was in trouble. I should have just kept it left.”
In a subsequent interview with Performance Racing Network, Harvick said Austin Dillon made initial contact with his car, leading to the spin.
Harvick spun and stopped in the middle of the track, resulting in a huge billow of smoke. The cloud just began to clear when Harvick’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Kurt Busch, came upon the scene and was unable to stop in time, making contact with the right side of Harvick’s car. Jeffrey Earnhardt then piled into the rear of Busch’s car.
“I don’t know what to say,” Busch told NBCSN. “We were just trying to limp it to (the end of) Stage 2. I heard cars spinning in Turn 2 in my ear (team radio), I saw smoke up ahead … As soon as the smoke cleared, I’m looking at Harvick’s door, my teammate.
“We’re running for playoffs, both of us. It’s just a shame. We were still going to fight all the way to the end and now we don’t have a chance. I don’t understand the bad luck we’re having.”
Busch now has just one race to turn things around and hopefully advance to Stage 2, next Sunday at Dover.
“All in,” Busch said of Dover. “We’ll go there with everything we’ve got … and give it everything we’ve got.”
Away from the main wreck, other drivers were involved in additional wrecks, including Austin Dillon, Danica Patrick, Denny Hamlin, points leader Martin Truex Jr. and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The red flag lasted 13 minutes, 1 second.
