Coca-Cola 600: Kevin Harvick Wins In Stunning Finish As Dale Earnhardt Jr. Runs Out Of Gas

Going into Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, most in the garage expected the Roush Fenway Racing cars to dominate the event. David Ragan had won the pole and the Sprint Showdown the week before, Carl Edwards easily won the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and Matt Kenseth beat teammates Edwards and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in Saturday’s Nationwide Series Top Gear 300.

Despite the dominance Roush Fenway Racing showed the last two weeks in Charlotte, it was Richard Childress Racing that was hoisting the trophy and celebrating in victory lane at the end of the night.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sat on the ledge of his No. 88 car’s window opening as it rolled silently into the Sprint Cup Series garage, steering it like a kid sitting sideways on a bike.

NASCAR’s most popular driver navigated the car through the darkness of Charlotte Motor Speedway and into one of the garage stalls, guided it between two pit boxes and hopped out as his crew members arrived to bring it to a halt.

Keeping with the theme of the day, Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 saw one of the wildest finishes in recent memory as the nearly every one in the field stretched the fuel mileage and the race was pushed into a green-white-checkered finish.

When Kasey Kahne ran out of gas on the final restart in the lead, Dale Earnhardt Jr. moved into the top spot. As Kahne and Jeff Burton wrecked behind him, no caution was thrown and the fan favorite took the white flag in the lead. Going down the backstretch on the final lap, Earnhardt Jr. ran out of gas, allowing Kevin Harvick to take the lead coming off the final corner.

Here we go. It’s time for NASCAR’s longest race of the season, the Coca-Cola 600.

So in between bites of your hot dogs and burgers and sips of beer, come hang out with us right here in the SB Nation race chat.

Kyle Busch repeatedly apologized for his “lack of judgment” in driving 128 mph in a 45 mph speed zone this week, telling reporters Thursday that it will never happen again.

“I’m certainly sorry that it happened,” he said. “All I can do is apologize to the public, my friends, my fans and my sponsors. I’ll look at this experience as a learning experience and move forward.”

Daytona 500 champion Trevor Bayne will make his NASCAR return next weekend, but he still doesn’t know the cause of a mysterious illness that has kept him out of competition for more than a month.

Bayne will drive the Nationwide Series at Chicagoland Speedway before returning to the Sprint Cup Series the following week at Michigan International Speedway, and met with the media on Thursday for the first time since being hospitalized.

It’s a funny thing about the Coca-Cola 600.

In an era where many are calling for shorter races to match our shorter attention spans, many of the 500-mile races at 1.5-mile tracks have stretches where they seem to be a bit, well, uneventful.