Harvick, Earnhardt Jr. rise to occasion

Say what you will about the first round of the 2015 Chase for the Sprint Cup, but one thing Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway had was plenty of drama.

There wasn’t a ton of drama up front, even though there probably should have been. Kevin Harvick simply needed a win to move to the next round of the Chase. Anything less would’ve ended in disappointment. He chose to dominate instead.

Harvick led 355 of 400 laps at “The Monster Mile” to score his first career win at the track and put his 11 fellow remaining Chasers on notice.

“I really don’t believe that we did anything different,” Harvick said after the race. “We’ve led a lot of laps at a lot of different races, and it’s like I’ve told you guys, these things go in cycles. The circumstances today were pretty straightforward. We didn’t have any crazy endings, and we just came in, put tires on it, and were fortunate to have a couple lap cars in between us a couple times to just have a straight-up race.”

Business as usual was Harvick winning yet another high-stakes race at the Sprint Cup level. Harvick won the final two races of last year’s Chase — the race at Phoenix that cut the grid from eight to four and the Homestead championship.

But then again, Harvick came to prominence after performing in arguably one of the most pressure-packed situations in sports history: replacing Dale Earnhardt at Richard Childress Racing and winning in his third career Sprint Cup start.

“There will never be anything close to that one,” Harvick said. “I think that’ll supercede any of these situations by a long ways. When you look at the sport’s biggest hero gone, you look at millions of race fans that are depending upon somebody to drive that car and you have 350 people that have jobs and families and you’re their guy, never done it before, but good luck. Know what I mean? That’s a lot of pressure.”

Speaking of Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt Jr. rose to the occasion with his back against the wall in the later stages of Sunday’s race. Junior needed to pass Jamie McMurray to stay alive in the Chase.

Shortly after the final restart on Lap 377, that pass happened. Earnhardt Jr. finished third, McMurray fourth. It was one of McMurray’s best runs of the season but not good enough.

“We had a late caution and got around him and (Matt Kenseth) down there on Turn 3 and 4 on the outside,” Earnhardt Jr. said after the race. “Jamie was trying to squeeze down in front of Matt into Turn 3 and get to the bottom, and they really slow-rolled that corner for some reason, both of them, and I just went to the outside because it was about the only shot I had to pinch anybody down, pinch Jamie down if I could get to his quarterpanel and that’s how it worked out.”

The season seemed in doubt for Earnhardt Jr. about 20 laps earlier as he reported a loose wheel. Brett Moffitt crashed on Lap 355 and brought out the caution, allowing the issue to be fixed and the season saved.

Jimmie Johnson wasn’t as lucky, however.

It appeared as the series’ most dominant driver at Dover could put himself into position to ruin Harvick’s title hopes. That is, until he fell victim to a rear axle seal failure fairly early in the race.

The big wreck that tends to happen from time to time at Dover didn’t happen and Johnson finished 41st. The drive for seven Sprint Cup titles will have to wait another year.

Drama, indeed.

Lug Notes: And there’s plenty of them, so keep reading ... It was announced Friday that Clint Bowyer will drive for HScott Motorsports next season in the Sprint Cup Series, a “layover” year of sorts before he takes over Tony Stewart’s No. 14 in 2017. Bowyer will be sponsored by 5-Hour Energy and will replace Justin Allgaier at the two-car operation ... Meanwhile, it was also announced that Elliott Sadler will drive for JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series next season with sponsorship from OneMain Financial. It will mark Sadler’s third team in three years (Joe Gibbs Racing and Roush Fenway Racing) ... One driver whose future is uncertain is Regan Smith, who put himself into the Xfinity Series championship discussion by winning the Hisense 200 at Dover Saturday. Smith took the lead on Lap 121 once the race started after a rain delay and never looked back, driving away from Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. The victory vaulted Smith to third in the points standings, 36 points behind leader Chris Buescher (who finished eighth). Chase Elliott finished seventh and trails Buescher by 24 markers. Ty Dillon suffered damage in an early crash and finished 28th. He fell to fourth in the standings, 39 behind Buescher ... The Camping World Truck Series produced a surprise winner for the second straight race as John Wes Townley won the Rhino Linings 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Saturday night. Townley inherited the lead after Matt Crafton ran out of gas with five laps to go. Townley coasted on the final lap and held off a charging Timothy Peters and Ben Kennedy to take the checkered flag. Erik Jones was the last truck on the lead lap with a ninth-place finish and leads the standings by four points over Matt Crafton (who finished eighth). Tyler Reddick took seventh and trails Jones by 19 points ... The other story coming from the Vegas Truck event came from a lap 15 crash between Reddick and Brad Keselowski Racing teammate Austin Theriault. Reddick got loose coming through Turn 4 and made contact with Theriault, who slammed into an outside wall that was not protected by a SAFER barrier. He suffered a lower back fracture ... William Byron won the 2015 K&N Pro Series East title Saturday at Dover.

— Ryan Papaserge is a reporter for The Evening Tribune and an auto racing reporter for GateHouse Media Southern Tier. Follow him on Twitter @RyanPapaserge or email him: ryanpapaserge@eveningtribune.com.