Kevin Harvick surged to a weekend doubleheader sweep Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, fending off a closing Denny Hamlin and riding a dominant Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Ford to his second NASCAR Cup Series win in a two-day span.
Harvick led 90 of 156 laps in Sunday’s Consumers Energy 400, one day after leading 92 of 161 in a Saturday triumph at the 2-mile Michigan track. His sixth victory of the season was his fifth at Michigan and the 55th of his Cup Series career, tying him with Rusty Wallace on the series’ all-time win list.
Hamlin placed second in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, just .093 seconds — about a car-length — behind at the checkered flag. Martin Truex Jr. locked down third place for the second straight race with Kyle Busch fourth and Joey Logano fifth.
The victory also sealed the Michigan Heritage Trophy for Ford. The award is given to the top-performing automaker in the two annual Cup Series races at MIS.
A mid-race crash eliminated Team Penske teammates Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney from contention. Keselowski was on the low side in their Lap 96 contest for the lead when his No. 2 Ford broke loose, collecting the No. 12 Mustang of Blaney. Both cars crunched the Turn 2 retaining wall, ending the day early for both. Blaney finished 38th with Keselowski last in the 39-car field.
THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF THE GO FAST
This weekly award gets to return to the closet this week. None of our eleven players saw Freaky Fast Harvick’s ability to sweep the weekend at Michigan in their crystal balls!
THE MOVERS AND THE SHAKERS
There was a large variance in scoring in the Consumers Energy 400. As previously mentioned nobody rode with Freak Fast Harvick today so the range of scores run the gambit.
The player who racked up the largest score was Carole, aka Rudy. Rudy was neatly tucked away inside the cockpit of The Delivernator for this race. Denny Hamlin was sniffing the lead of the race all afternoon, just as he did on Saturday. For Hamlin’s second place finish today Rudy put 40 points into her 2nd segment totals.
Doing almost as well as Rudy today was a really weird conglomerate of unsavory characters that include Jim, aka Chiefy, Jeremy The Coach, as well as Amber The Extremely Lucky Cheddar Head. All three were stowaways in the cockpit of Clint Bowyer’s hot rod, awarded 39 points and are celebrating their recently release from an undisclosed location!
Edie The LasVegas Super Star is still making a slow climb through the leaderboard with 28 points that Chase Elliott delivered to her today.
Carlton The Doorman was laying low and riding shotgun with Ryan Newman. For that thrill ride The Doorman deposited a nifty 24 points to be added to his 2nd segment totals.
Rounding out the top five scorers this week is Snoopy Dawn. Snoopy very conveniently stashed herself very covertly inside the CGR No. 42 that had Matt Kenseth at the wheel, When the checkered flag fell Snoopy took home 22 points for the race.
This week about one half of the fantasy league changed positions.
The biggest mover amongst us is Dan The Numbers Cruncher. It appears that The Redneck Fantasy League Private Investigator must have caused him a little panic after The Numbers Dude smoked us just yesterday in the Michigan 1 race! In the Michigan 2, however, race The Numbers Dude barely scored in the double digits, just 10 points in the bucket. That marginal score was enough to drop him four (4) places to land in 6th position.
Conversely, Jim, aka Chiefy, stepped up his game climbing up two places to rest in 3rd place this week.
The remaining five players remained in their previous positions.
STRAIGHT FROM THE CRAPPER
This week The Crappiest Pick of The Week is shared by two ladies. Both Linda The Cookie Mom and Bernie The Bay Area Bandit chocked up six (6) magnificent points at Michigan. Their driver, YRB, Young Ryan Blaney was knocked out of the race and driven up into the fence by Your Most Humble Sheriff’s choice to win, Blazingly Bad Brad Keselowski.
For the umpteenth time this segment Jeremy The Coach returns to his “home away from home”, The Outhouse! With one more race in this segment, the newly added Darlington race, there is a chance that The Coach could escape or be evicted from The Outhouse at the end of the Darlington race. (One can only dream!)
Check out the results of the Consumers Energy 400 at Michigan.
Next week NASCAR slides on down to the Daytona road course for all three touring series.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!