TICKET GUARDIAN 500
ISM Raceway, Phoenix, 3 p.m.
Week four of NASCAR takes us to the desert where Kevin Harvick has been the Oasis.
Harvick, starting out of the eighth spot in his No. 4 car, will look to win at Phoenix for the fifth time in the last six years.
To say Harvick likes Phoenix is a drastic understatement.
This 312-lap race began in 2005 when Kurt Busch took the checkered flag. That led to 10 Chevrolet wins in the 14 years since. Chevy will be paced Sunday by Chase Elliott in the front row and Alex Bowman and William Byron, who sit seventh and eighth, respectively.
Harvick comes in as Sunday’s favorite and rightfully so with his track record at this track. His main competition could come from his one-time nemesis Kyle Busch. Both drivers check in as the 7-2 favorites on the early line.
There was time not too long ago where the two almost exchanged blows. Those days appear to be gone.
“As rough as our relationship was to start things off, there’s a mutual respect that we have found over the past several years that have created a healthy competitiveness instead of an unhealthy competitiveness,” Harvick told NASCAR.com Friday.
“Look, Kyle’s a great race car driver. Kyle and I have really not much in common off the race track, but I have an extreme amount of respect for what he does in the race car and the things that happen on the race track. There isn’t a guy in the garage that I want to beat more than Kyle just because of the fact that if you’ve beat him on the race track, you’ve had a really good day. Racing with him head-to-head is something that I enjoy. Definitely, he wants to beat me, I want to beat him, but I feel like I have a good relationship with Kyle.”
Once enemies the two rivals now get along almost as well as our experts Scott “Tobacco Road’’ Baker and Mike “Left Turn’’ Sweeney.
“There was certainly a time where Harvick and I both would agree that if neither of us showed up at the race track anymore that we would totally be OK with that,’’ Busch said Friday. “Now it’s kind of resurfaced a little bit differently where I feel as though we feel like when we get to the race track we know we would much rather be able to beat each other and we’ve done it way more respectfully over the course of the last . . . I don’t know, 2014, since then. I don’t know if that was just his move to SHR and the relationship that I had with Tony (Stewart) and Tony kind of telling Kevin, ‘Hey, give him some slack,’ or whatever, but it’s definitely come more from his side than my side as far as the friendliness I guess you could say.
“It’s nice to be able to have that relationship with guys in the garage area. You don’t have to be friends with them, but you do have to know that you have to respect them and you do have to know that you have to have an opportunity to go out there and race door handle to door handle or bumper to bumper and know that you’re not going to get wrecked. Kevin and I have that going right now and hopefully we can keep that going that way and there are some others out there that could certainly learn a few things.”
The Picks:
> Kyle Busch (7-2): “L.T.’’ Sweeney and “T.R.’’ Baker both included Busch in their picks, with “TR’’ losing him as his No. 1 this week. I’m right with them. He finished fourth here in 2016; third in 2017; and second last year. Do you see a trend? He’s had a good start to the 2019 season and now needs a win.
> Brad Keselowski (8-1): This was “L.T.’s” top selection as he goes with the hot 2019 driver. Keselowski, who got out of the sick bed to win two weeks ago in Atlanta, has never won in Phoenix. Maybe it’s his time.
> Kevin Harvick (7-2): With four wins in the past five years here, you absolutely can not leave him out.
Longshot Play:
> Denny Hamlin (14-1): Finished fourth last year and third in 2016.