NASCAR Chicago 2015 recap: Kevin Harvick’s championship hopes suffers major setback

Brimming with bravado Kevin Harvick entered NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff thinking a second straight championship was a distinct possibility, emphatically dismissing any notion Joe Gibbs Racing could unseat him despite a strong regular-season showing.

Firing the first salvo, Harvick declared he was going to “pound (JGR) into the ground” during Thursday’s Chase Media Day leading into Sunday’s playoff opener at Chicagoland Speedway.

So what if Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards had won 11 of 26 regular seasons and eight of the past 11, Harvick was still the champ until someone proved they could beat him when it mattered the most. And it’s not as if the Stewart-Haas Racing driver had shown any weaknesses, registering two wins and 10 second-place finishes and leading the series in top-fives, top-10s and laps.

Confidence buoyed further when he posted the fastest time in practice Friday, which gave him the pole-position when rain canceled qualifying.

But Harvick’s bid for another championship took a body blow Sunday, sparking Harvick to later deliver his own to Jimmie Johnson following an on-track altercation that significantly decreased Harvick’s chances of repeating.

The encounter between the two friends -- Harvick openly and often credited Johnson in helping him secure his first title last season and they used to bunk together in the basement of retired driver Ron Hornaday Jr. -- came when Johnson, with an assist from Joey Logano, body-slammed the left-side of Harvick’s car on a Lap 135 restart. That created a left-rear tire rub and three laps later Harvick was spinning hard into the outside Turn 3 wall.

“I just held my line and (Johnson) slammed into the side of my door,” Harvick said. “That was pretty much it.”

Johnson cited Logano’s aggressiveness in pushing him off the track and onto the apron as the impetus, though Harvick was having none of Johnson’s justification. Not that it mattered any.

Even before landing a jab to Johnson’s chest in the drivers’ motorhome lot, Harvick made his displeasure obvious by gesturing to Johnson’s crew when he returned to the track after repairs were made. And when Johnson tried to conciliate his former roommate by offering a face-to-face explanation, Harvick reacted physically.

Frustration that’s understandable considering Harvick was leading at the time of the incident and likely would’ve gone on to place somewhere in the top 10, if not outright win.

Instead the No. 4 car sustained considerable damage and Harvick finished 42nd, a potentially devastating result that could mean the end of his championship reign far sooner than anyone expected.

If Harvick is to avoid a first-round elimination he will need to either overcome a sizable points deficit -- 22 behind 12th-ranked Jeff Gordon -- or win one of the next two races. Of the two options, the latter is most feasible.

As Harvick demonstrated in last year’s postseason, though he talks a big game, he also possesses a knack for rising to the occasion when his back is against the wall. He came through in a must-win situation in the penultimate race at Phoenix International Raceway to qualify for the championship finale, and then bulled to victory the next week to claim the title.

“We can win anywhere -- we could’ve won today,” Harvick said. “It’s just a matter of putting a couple of [races] together and being able to come back to Victory Lane.”

Adding salt to a festering wound, Hamlin rallied back from an early spin to give JGR its third consecutive win and ninth in 12 races. Assuring no matter what unfolds the next two weeks, a minimum of at least one Joe Gibbs-owned car will advance to the second round.

“I’m not going to get into a verbal thing,” Hamlin said. “We’re one race in. It didn’t work out well for him today.”

Meanwhile Harvick will again need to conjure some more Chase magic to keep his championship hopes afloat. Not at all a scenario the bombastic champ envisioned.