NASCAR Dover 2015: Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr. come up short

Although Jimmie Johnson may be the all-time wins leader at Dover International Raceway, for much of the FedEx 400 it looked as if victory No. 10 would have to wait.

Johnson didn’t have the fastest car Sunday -- he didn’t take the lead until 23 laps remained with Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick combining to command a majority of the race (340 of a possible 405 laps).

A rash of late cautions and varying pit strategies shuffled the running order and Johnson capitalized. He jumped into the lead when crew chief Chad Knaus kept him on the track with old tires following an accident involving Kyle Busch and Brian Scott with 23 laps to go.

Harvick also didn’t pit and lined up alongside Johnson on the ensuing restart. Truex, who took two tires, sat fourth. Neither could pass Johnson, though. Dealing with a broken track bar, Harvick couldn’t get his car to handle properly, while Truex’s Chevrolet -- which worked best over long green flag runs -- couldn’t mount a challenge.

Harvick finished second, while Truex slid back to sixth.

“Once the track bar broke, we were pretty much in a box and just kind of had to hold on for the first 25 laps,” Harvick said. “If we weren’t in the front then we struggled to just maintain what we had.”

Said Truex: “Clean air was huge. When we were out front, we were okay. It just never turned good all day long. It just eventually caught up to us.”

Harvick said there was nothing he could have done to get around Johnson. When it came down to it, the No. 48 car was faster. Also working in Johnson’s favor is that no one knows how to get around Dover better.

“This is a good racetrack for them,” Harvick said. “They had everything lineup for them and had a good car, and they had a good car in practice and were able to make it happen there at the end on the restart. He’s just good here.”

Though Harvick and Truex didn’t win, they made it to the finish line with their cars in one piece. The same couldn’t be said for Hamlin -- the Joe Gibbs Racing driver wrecked when Clint Bowyer tapped his rear bumper, sending him into the inside wall 13 laps from the finish.

Bowyer took responsibility for the incident, which heavily damaged Hamlin’s No. 11 car. He lost three laps after repairs and finished 21st.

“We were on those new tires and I thought we were going to really make some hay,” Hamlin said. “We got clear of (Bowyer) and we were -- I thought we were going to make a run at it. We never even got a corner through before we got turned around.

“Disappointed, but we really didn’t have a winning car there at the end of the race.”