NASCAR
Cup Series Standings: Kevin Harvick Had a Lousy Day Considering He Finished 10th at Road America
John Moriello started covering sports in 1982, began digital publishing in 1995, and joined Sportscasting in 2020. A graduate of St. John Fisher University, he finds inspiration in the underdogs and the fascinating stories sports can tell (both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat). John expertly covers all aspects of NASCAR. Beginning with his 2014 coverage at Fox Sports of the aftermath of the dirt-race tragedy in which Kevin Ward Jr. died after being struck by a car driven by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, John has excelled as a journalist who specializes in the motorsports world. He previously spent more than three decades covering high school sports and worked as a beat writer covering Big East football and basketball, but NASCAR is now where the true expertise falls. John is a member of the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame (2013), the President of the New York State Sportswriters Association, and a two-time Best of Gannett winner for print and online collaborations whose work has appeared on FoxSports.com and MaxPreps.com.
Get to know John Moriello betterPublished04 Jul 2022
The worst-case scenario for Kevin Harvick grew even worse halfway through the third stage of the race at Road America. When Tyler Reddick passed Chase Elliott to set up his first NASCAR Cup Series victory, he knocked Harvick down into what amounts to must-win territory.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Kevin Harvick’s precipitous fall continues
There’s a case to be made that Kevin Harvick’s falloff is even more dramatic than what Jimmie Johnson endured at the end of his NASCAR career.
Johnson, of course, went winless in his final 130 starts before retiring at the end of the 2020 season. However, Johnson finished 10th or worse in points in three of the four seasons even before going winless from 2018-20.
While it’s true the seven-time Cup Series champion won the 2016 title and then three races in 2017 before the astonishing slump, Harvick’s current 61-race winless streak is more dramatic because he reached the Championship 4 from 2017-19 and was heading back there in 2020 when his nine-win season disintegrated before our eyes. He stunned NASCAR when he failed to transfer out of the final eight to the title race, and it’s been nothing but disappointment since.
Aside from being winless in 2022, Harvick could be heading for decade-long lows in top-five and top-10 results.
Tenth place at Road America constituted a loss
Kevin Harvick has stood 13th or better in points since the fourth NASCAR Cup Series race of the year, and a current streak of three straight results in the top 10 has helped him climb two spots to 11th place.
That had been of some consolation and a reason for optimism regarding playoff hopes, and Harvick showed up at Road America on the bubble. Had the regular season ended in Nashville, he would have been the last driver on the right side of the points cutoff.
On Sunday, Tyler Reddick made the bubble burst. By winning at Road America, Reddick became the 13th driver to score a victory. At best, three winless drivers can get to the playoffs on points, and Harvick now ranks fourth on that list to Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr., and Christopher Bell.
At just 20 points back, Harvick certainly could still catch Bell. But what happens if (when?) Blaney finally wins a race this year to punctuate a superbly consistent season? That would make Truex the guy to catch, and Harvick trails him by a more problematic 61 points with just eight races to go.
So, no, 10th place over the weekend was not a good day for Harvick.
Here’s what the points list looks like at the moment:
| Rank | Driver | Points | Race Wins | Stage Wins | Playoff Pts | Top 5 | Top 10 |
| 1 | Chase Elliott | 624 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 5 | 12 |
| 2 | Ryan Blaney | 591 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
| 3 | Ross Chastain | 589 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 9 | 12 |
| 4 | Kyle Larson | 553 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 8 | 10 |
| 5 | Joey Logano | 551 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 5 | 8 |
| 6 | Kyle Busch | 547 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 11 |
| 7 | Martin Truex Jr. | 540 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 7 |
| 8 | Christopher Bell | 499 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 10 |
| 9 | Alex Bowman | 494 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 9 |
| 10 | William Byron | 489 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 4 | 5 |
| 11 | Kevin Harvick | 479 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 10 |
| 12 | Aric Almirola | 452 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| 13 | Tyler Reddick | 441 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 7 |
| 14 | Austin Cindric | 431 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 5 |
| 15 | Kurt Busch | 424 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 7 |
| 16 | Chase Briscoe | 422 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 4 |
| Rank | Driver | Points | Race Wins | Stage Wins | Playoff Pts | Top 5 | Top 10 |
| 17 | Daniel Suarez | 420 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 6 |
| 18 | Erik Jones | 414 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 19 | Austin Dillon | 405 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 |
| 20 | Denny Hamlin | 394 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 3 | 4 |
| 21 | Michael McDowell | 384 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
| 22 | Chris Buescher | 356 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 23 | Justin Haley | 344 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 24 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | 327 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 25 | Bubba Wallace | 322 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 26 | Ty Dillon | 301 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 27 | Cole Custer | 295 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rank | Driver | Points | Race Wins | Stage Wins | Playoff Pts | Top 5 | Top 10 |
| 28 | Harrison Burton | 277 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 29 | Todd Gilliland | 264 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 30 | Brad Keselowski | 239 | 0 | 0 | -10 | 0 | 2 |
| 31 | Corey LaJoie | 205 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 32 | Cody Ware | 134 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 33 | David Ragan | 61 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 34 | Joey Hand | 44 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 35 | Greg Biffle | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 36 | Jacques Villeneuve | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 37 | Boris Said | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 38 | Kyle Tilley | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
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