Harvick takes Bristol win, then celebrates with Stewart

Although the Bass Pro Shops Night Race — wasn’t a night race after all — it didn’t disappoint.

Fortunately, for Harvick, he avoided the mayhem for his second victory at Thunder Valley since the spring race in 2005 and his second win in 2016.

“Thanks guys, awesome job,” Harvick said after checking out from the field over the last 51 laps. By Lap 500, the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevy bested Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to the line by 1.933-seconds. Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon and rookie Chris Buescher rounded out the top five.

Duel burnouts

Harvick then asked his boss and friend, Tony Stewart, who is making his final start at Bristol, to join him for a victory lap around half of the half-mile track.

"That was cool,” Stewart said. “The funny part is he got out of his car to grab the flag and he goes, 'Get in my car and go to Victory Lane with me.' And I was like, 'What?' I can't leave my car here!' But that was cool. I was happy for those guys. This is a hard to place to win because there are so many things that can go wrong. It was cool sharing that moment with him.”

The drivers performed dueling doughnuts for the fans that returned to the track after the race was delayed for rain after just 31 laps were completed on Saturday night.

"I wanted him (Stewart) to go on a Victory Lap with me and say goodbye to his fans one last time, but that was pretty cool doing burnouts with him," Harvick said of the double burnout with Stewart. "We should have won a lot of races this year and we just had things not go our way. We made mistakes, or whatever the case may be. But to get back to Victory Lane here at Bristol, it feels really good.

"We've had the performance that we've needed in the cars almost every week and it's been one of those deals where things didn't go exactly right. But to have the win now and to have that momentum before we get into the Chase and really get things rolling is really what we needed."

The race was slowed by nine cautions — the first for rain on Lap 31, which delayed the race overnight. Engines were re-fired at the 10:42 mark of the race and ran under yellow for the five minutes and 18-seconds. Kyle Busch led the field to green followed by Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Hamlin and Matt Kenseth.

NASCAR called a competition caution on Lap 87. The third caution was called when Regan Smith hit the wall in Turn 2. The race went green until Lap 255 — following a caution for debris. The action picked up over the final 200 laps. On Lap 307, Kurt Busch nudged Kyle Larson in Turn for fourth place to ignite the fifth caution.

Busch brothers' days come to an abrupt end

Kyle Busch, who led a race-high 256 laps, detected a problem on his car on Lap 358. Before he could bring the car in for repairs, he spun between Laps 1 and 2. Justin Allgaier could not slow quick enough and plowed into the No. 18. Martin Truex Jr., slowed to avoid the melee and Larson ran into the back of the No. 78. Busch finished 39th.

When the race returned to green on Lap 372, Kurt Busch jumped Joey Logano on the restart and momentarily had the lead. But the No. 41 became loose coming out of Turn 4 and collected Brad Keselowski and nine additional cars on the backstretch.

“I think I just missed the bottom groove by a few inches, got loose and the wreck was on,” Busch said. "The way that our car was restarting it felt comfortable, it felt good. That inside with the rosin and the VHT if you don’t hit it exactly right you lose a lot of time. I tried to make up for it and got loose."

Logano led Harvick and the field to the green on Lap 389. But Lap 401, Harvick was applying the bumper to Logano and passed on the inside in Turn 4 three laps later and held the point to the eighth caution on Lap 416. Hamlin took two tires and beat Harvick out of the pits. Harvick regained the lead with 70 laps to go, but rain delayed the action again on Lap 433 for the ninth and final caution.

The race was red-flagged for 6:57 due to rain. When the track dried, the race returned to yellow on Lap 446 with Harvick in the lead, followed by Hamlin, Johnson, Dillon and Jamie McMurray. Dillon moved to second on restart, three laps later. Hamlin slows and Stenhouse passed the No. 11 on Lap 450. On Lap 458, Stenhouse, who restarted sixth, used the high-line to pass Dillon for second on the backstretch. He tied his best-career finish of second — also set at Bristol in 2014.

"It was frustrating starting sixth on that last restart,” Stenhouse said. “I knew we were going to have to hit everything perfect to have a chance. We had Bryan Clauson's tribute helmet here and I dug deep and the guys dug deep and made a lot of changes that made our Ford run a lot better. We really wanted to park in Victory Lane for his whole family and his friends and fans. We really wanted to put it in Victory Lane but were a little bit short."

Polesitter Carl Edwards finished sixth, followed by Jimmie Johnson, McMurray, AJ Allmendinger and Logano.

Harvick took the point lead from Keselowski, who returned to the race but finished 33rd. Harvick’s advantage in 27 points. Buescher, who won at Pocono, moved into the Chase Zone -- 29th in the standings with a 13-point advantage over Michael McDowell.

"That was a lot of fun," Buescher said. "It’s been a long time since we’ve come to the race track and enjoy it like that. We had awesome speed out of our Love’s Ford Fusion. I’m really proud of the team. This thing was good from the start of the weekend.

"We kept working our way up towards the end and got to the top five, and almost got one there at the end, but I love Bristol. I absolutely love this race track. What they did with the surface worked out really well and made for some really good racing.”

Cla	#	Driver	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Laps Led	Points
1	4	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet	500	3:26'46	128	44
2	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	500	1.933		39
3	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	500	2.088	19	39
4	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	500	4.989		37
5	34	Chris Buescher	Ford	500	5.088		36
6	19	Carl Edwards	Toyota	500	6.312	31	36
7	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	500	6.446		34
8	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	500	7.455		33
9	47	A.J. Allmendinger	Chevrolet	500	7.549		32
10	22	Joey Logano	Ford	500	9.877	38	32