Harvick, RCR have it all figured out

You know it really wasn’t that long ago when there was a debate of whether Kevin Harvick was even going to stay at Richard Childress Racing. I think he was honestly contemplating leaving there. It had gotten to the point in the past couple of years where Kevin felt he just couldn’t win a championship there.

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Well, obviously that has all changed now.

I think the big component was the folks at RCR realizing they were way behind on their race cars. It wasn’t the engines. The No. 42 team of Juan Pablo Montoya, which uses the same engines, proved that point in 2009 by making the Chase for the Sprint Cup. So RCR was able to isolate that they had some car issues.

Also remember that they did latch onto some positive momentum near the end of last season. It seemed like they were able to continue that when we started the 2010 schedule. I think they made a statement early on this year that they were back and going to be a factor all year long.

One of the major signals to me is they are running very well at tracks they historically struggle at. For example, until June 2010, Harvick had never led a lap at Pocono in, like, nine years. They had a top-five finish. They don’t normally run well at Auto Club Speedway in California and had a top-five finish there back in February.

Historically, they aren’t that great at Michigan, and here they won the race on Sunday.

If that isn’t enough proof, how about the fact that Kevin hadn’t won at a non-restrictor plate race track since the fall of 2006? So Sunday’s win at Michigan meant quite a lot, plus there's the benefit of the signal it sends to the other teams RCR will be facing in the Chase here in a few weeks.

Harvick is our points leader and at the forefront right now. His teammate, Jeff Burton, in the No. 31, is definitely going to make the Chase. The No. 33 team of Clint Bowyer still has three races to make its way into the Chase, and I think Bowyer can do it.

Now in addition to the announcement that Budweiser will be Harvick's primary sponsor for 20 of next year's points events, you also recently had the announcement of RCR going back to a four-team organization. Paul Menard is moving his family sponsorship over to RCR beginning in 2011.

I worked for Richard and he is a very intelligent man. I think he realizes the mistakes they all made the last time they went to a four-team lineup. I don’t think Richard will allow those same mistakes to happen again.

So while RCR was running strong across the board Sunday at Michigan, you saw Hendrick Motorsports have another dismal outing. What is happening to Jimmie Johnson's team is strange to me. This is the first time in as long as I can remember that they seem to weaken late in the race instead of getting stronger and dominating. We just aren’t used to seeing that out of that bunch.

On the other hand, the No. 24 team of Jeff Gordon looked pretty darn good. When you consider the fact that Jeff Gordon started clear back in the 36th spot and drove to third without the aid of a lot of cautions, well, it showed the strength of that car Sunday.

When you look at the No. 5 team of Mark Martin, as I have said before, they might make this year's Chase by default, but they just aren’t really a Chase contender. To me that No. 5 team is still nowhere near where it needs to be. Then the last one in the Hendrick stable is the No. 88 team of Dale Earnhardt Jr., and they continue to be so far off.

It also was a pretty good day overall for the Ford camp, specifically for Roush Fenway Racing. You have to be happy for Elliott Sadler, who drives for Richard Petty Motorsports through an alliance with Roush, getting his first top-10 finish of the year plus his first top-10 finish in a long, long time. Roush Fenway had its four cars in the top 11 and three of them in the top five. On a side note, how fitting that was for that group with team owner Jack Roush coming back to the race track for the first time following the injuries he suffered in his recent plane crash.

Over at Joe Gibbs Racing, it was quite the rebound of fortunes after seeing how poorly that organization's teams were running on Friday and Saturday. None of them qualified very well. They turned things around Sunday with two cars in the top 10, and probably Kyle Busch would have been the third one if he hadn’t hit the wall in Turn 2.

The biggest complaint we are hearing from that group, in particular Denny Hamlin and Busch, is they do not have enough speed. They are really complaining about their lack of straightaway speed. So that’s kind of surprising.

I was pleased to see the crowd that turned out Sunday. They had great weather that obviously is always a huge benefit at a racetrack. Again, I love racing at Michigan. You saw it there at the end, too. Hamlin was running low and Harvick was running high. It’s just an awesome track.