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| Kevin Harvick's only Cup win at Fontana came in 2011. |
Can any team beat his No. 4 Ford?
"They’re certainly good," said Kyle Busch, who has finished second behind Harvick the past two weeks. "They have kind of picked up right where they left off and we beat them at Homestead. They’ve been right there each and every week, so far. You’ve gone to three of arguably his best racetracks these past three weeks. They got the job done where they needed to. Ask me again in August, but not next week.”
Sounds like Busch is tired of finishing second to him, and that's good. In fact every other team should feel the same way and get some pressure on their entire garage to find speed like Harvick's team has. They were good to close out 2017, but not this good.
Harvick has a 2011 win at Fontana and while it hasn't been one of his best tracks during his career, there's not much reason to believe he won't be fast this week simply because he dominated at Las Vegas at Atlanta, downforce tracks that require lots of horsepower, just like Fontana.
But somebody else has to step up soon. Martin Truex Jr. won on seven of the 11 1.5-mile tracks last season, but he had nothing for Harvick at Atlanta or Vegas. His fourth-place finish last season was his first top-five finish at Fontana.
“I feel Fontana has been a good track for us over the years but we just haven’t capitalized on our performance there,” Truex noted. “We’re right there. It’s like when you’re out fishing and you catch a bunch of fish and you feel like you’re throwing the right lure, but maybe it’s just not the right color – we need to get it dialed in. We’re so close.”
Truex is definitely one of the few drivers that can slow the Harvick freight train.
Three-time Fontana winner Kyle Busch is one of the others on a short list of candidates just because of his past success on what is a difficult track to figure out.
“That place is tough," Busch said. "It’s really a hard racetrack to get a hold of, now, especially when it’s hot and the sun is out. There are two completely different types of racing when you run the top versus the bottom groove. You can run from the top to the bottom but, when you run the bottom, you really feel like you’re puttering around the racetrack. You feel like you aren’t making up any time on the bottom. But when you are running the top groove, you feel like you’re getting the job done. The guys who run the bottom have a little bit more patience and handle it better than the guys who are on the gas on top.”
Yes, Busch has the place figured out with a 10.7 average finish and he's been solving it since arriving in the series with his first career Cup win there in 2005. His last six Fontana starts go like this: third-place, runner-up, winner, winner, 25th and eighth last year. Only Jimmie Johnson has been better than Busch's three wins and 611 laps led.
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