Lucky Number Seven

Kevin Harvick dominates the field to win his seventh race of 2018 at Michigan International Speedway

Last week Chase Elliott managed to find victory lane at Watkins Glen for his first career win and momentarily steal the spotlight from the Big Three. On Sunday Kevin Harvick reminded everyone that the Big Three is still the major force to be reckoned with in NASCAR by leading 108 of 200 laps on his way to capturing the checkered flag at the Consumers Energy 400. It's Harvick's seventh win on the season, breaking a tie with Kyle Busch for the most Cup Series victories in 2018.

"The most important thing is winning races right now and getting all the points that you can get to position yourself well to get to Homestead," Harvick said. "That’s what we’ve been trying to do all year is win races. That was our only goal. We didn’t want to learn anything. We don’t want to do anything different. We just want to go out, and we want to win."

It was a clean sweep for Harvick as he also took the checkered greens for winning Stage One and Stage Two. The victory is his second career win at Michigan, the first one coming back in 2010, and the 44th of his career, which ties him with Hall of Famer Bill Elliott for 17th place on the NASCAR Cup Series all-time wins list.

The clean sweep also moved Harvick past Kyle Busch for the series lead in playoff points with three races remaining before The Chase For The Cup begins at Las Vegas on September 16th. Harvick now sits with 40 bonus points, Busch with 35.

Brad Keselowski finished a distant second place, trailing Harvick by more than three seconds. The veteran driver is still winless on the year. Keselowski hasn't gone winless so deep into a season since 2010 and is starting to feel the pressure.

"We kind of clawed all day and had some good restarts with the Discount Tire Ford and got all we could get out of it but just ended up one spot short and that is so frustrating," said Keselowski. "So with that in mind, it’s good for everybody’s morale at Team Penske, and on the No. 2 team as well, but of course we want to break through and win as well. As I indicated, we not where we need to be to just win on speed against those guys week-in and week-out, so we’ve just got to find it. We’ve got to find that little bit of performance. It’s not a lot, but it’s just enough to keep us out of Victory Lane."

Kyle Busch brought home the No. 18 car in third place to continue his incredible hot streak of top-five finishes. Busch now has ten top-fives out of the last eleven races. His only blemish during the run was a race-ending crash at Daytona five weeks ago.

"You better be right on to win these races these days with the guys that are winning and being able to execute at the end of the day," said Busch. "Our Interstate Batteries Camry was pretty close, but certainly wish we had just a tick more. Overall, good day for us – it’s Michigan and we don’t count on much when we come to Michigan."

Busch still has only one career win at Michigan in 28 career starts. It came back in 2011.

Austin Dillon was running in second place when he suffered a cut tire on the next to last lap of the race. The young driver was able to hang on to finish in fourth place, his first top-five finish since winning the Daytona 500 to kick of the season.

"I got to battle with Harvick there and that was awesome," said Dillon. "I’m so proud of the guys for having a car capable of doing that. Yeah, (losing positions on the last lap) really stunk. We were kind of in position that if something happened to the No. 4 we could win the race. With two to go, I went into (Turn) 3 and I kind of missed the corner. When I came down the straightaway, it was just shaking like either the tire was unraveling or it was a loose wheel. But, I didn’t want to lose this great finish we had in front of us, but we brought it home with a top five at least."

Ryan Blaney finished in fifth place, his second career top-five finish at Michigan. Blaney is still winless this season, but has been consistent enough to sit in eighth place in the drivers points standings. With only three races remaining before the playoffs begin, Blaney is all but guaranteed a spot in The Chase.

Kurt Busch, Aric Almirola, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Joey Logano round out the top-ten. Elliott has finished in the top-ten in all six of his career starts at Michigan.

Click here for full race results.

With his third place finish Kyle Busch maintained his lead in the NASCAR drivers points standings. Kevin Harvick sits in second place 62 points behind Busch, while Martin Truex Jr. is in third 144 points behind. Kurt Busch sits in fourth place 236 points behind his brother Kyle. With only three races remaining in the regular season, Harvick is the only driver who can threaten Kyle Busch for the regular season title.

You can see the updated Driver's Points Standings here.

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads back to the Volunteer State next week for the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 18th.

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_{Photo credits: Winston 1085 CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons}

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_{Author: @chops316
Editor: @liberty-minded}

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