Harvick completes season sweep of second-place finishes at Pocono

After a late-race round of green-flag pit stops, Harvick cycled into the lead but Kyle Busch had waited longer than anyone else to make his final stop and his No. 18 Toyota was on much fresher tires for the dash to the checkered flag.

No match for Kyle Busch

With 16 of 160 laps remaining, Harvick wiggled in Turn 3, Busch – coming quickly – nudged into him, completed the pass and drove off to a more than six-second win.

“The only chance I had (to keep Busch behind me) was to get into the corner correctly. I got in there and was loose all the way through the corner on entry and just kept holding the brake down,” Harvick said.

“Finally, I’m sure he thought I was going to go, and I didn’t accelerate. I was trying to stay on the bottom to park the thing to get going and he had a good run.”

Harvick said there was no shame in battling for Busch for the win as he had the fastest car all weekend.

“His car was really, really fast. He got the pole. Got the win. Pretty much just charged through the field,” he said. “We definitely have a little bit of work to do. I feel like we got closer and closer. I feel like we raced around all the Toyotas all day.”

That was not a bad thing on Sunday, as all six Joe Gibbs Racing and Furniture Row Racing Toyotas finished in the top nine. Busch and Truex combined to lead 105 laps.

Harvick also finished second in the June race at Pocono. While his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team got off to a relatively slow start this season, the performance has picked up over the summer.

Harvick earned his first win of the season in June at Sonoma, Calif., and he has now finished ninth or better in five of his last six races and remains third in the series standings.

Stewart-Haas Racing enjoys strong day overall

All four SHR cars finished in the top 15 in Sunday’s race. Right now, it appears SHR could send three drivers to the playoffs. Kurt Busch is locked in with a win and Clint Bowyer is in position to make the 16-driver field on points.

That’s a significant achievement for an organization that went through an offseason change from Chevrolet to Ford.

“I wish I could explain to everybody how big the workload has been switching to Ford and doing all the things we’ve done and trying to race and progress at the same time,” Harvick said. “They’ve done a really good job.

“Luckily we have great people to help that progression. It covers up a lot of things that is going on. We keep getting better. I know we’ll get better as we go into the playoffs. Just keep battling, that’s all you can do.”