During a discourse, the definitive final punctuation mark – the closer, so to speak – is a period. It denotes the end of the sentence; subject closed.
But while much of the speculation in the days following the Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway centered on just two drivers, the period is not yet placed. This conversation is far from over.
The first driver under discussion was Carl Edwards, who maintained the lead in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver standings heading into the November 4-6 race weekend at Texas Motor Speedway by 8 points. Despite having earned no victories so far in the 10-race postseason playoff, Edwards had led the field thanks to his consistency; he finished in the top 10 in six of the seven races leading up to Texas, and posted an average finish of 6.1. Week to week, those are hard numbers to beat.
The second driver in the conversation was Tony Stewart. Stewart has made it difficult for Edwards, or anyone else for that matter, to win a Chase race this season, since prior to Texas, he had visited Victory Lane in three of the seven races already run. Still, those three victories propelled him to only second place in the driver standings.
While four or five guys could still theoretically win the title, many so-called “realistic” people believe that our eventual 2011 champion will be one of these two front-running drivers.
Not so fast. If NASCAR was a two-horse race, things would be awfully quiet on Sunday afternoons. And a third driver, who apparently is not a believer in foregone conclusions, has inserted his foot firmly in the door and intends to not only pry it open and walk through it, but to shut and lock it behind him.
Kevin Harvick, who moved from fifth to third in the driver standings thanks to a fourth-place finish at Martinsville and trailed Edwards by 21 points headed to Texas, said, “The goal is just to keep chipping away at the lead. We got a little behind at Talladega, but we just gotta keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve got three to go, and we’re closer now then we were last week.”
By his own admission, Harvick was thrust into the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series spotlight a little too soon, taking over the re-numbered No. 29 Richard Childress Racing Chevy in February 2001 after the passing of Dale Earnhardt Sr.
Assuming NASCAR’s most famous and beloved seat is the most stressful measure of a man’s mettle imaginable, but Harvick came through. In only his third race as a full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competitor, he went to Victory Lane at Atlanta, and to date, has amassed 18 wins in NASCAR’s premier series, including four this season.
He has also shown himself willing to put his money where his mouth – and his heart – is. Not content to be one of those drivers who just shows up at the track when it’s time to go racing, Harvick, along with his wife DeLana, has over the years invested and won driver and owner championships in both the NASCAR Nationwide and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
Harvick has represented his sport well in many ways, but if you asked him, he might say he still hasn’t represented it in the way that matters most to him – as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion. He is determined to make that happen. “I am all for doing whatever you have to do to win the championship,” he said in an interview after Martinsville.
This “by any means necessary” attitude may result in some late-season fireworks. In addition to being a brilliant and aggressive driver, Harvick is also known to be outspoken and honest to the point of brashness, willing to spar both on and off the track. Although this has made him wildly popular with fans, he certainly doesn’t walk through the garage trailed by a crowd of butterflies and bunnies; there are a couple of more predatory animals hanging around there, too. He is polarizing.
He’s also rather sneaky. On numerous occasions, when races appeared to be all but won by another driver, he has miraculously come from behind in the final laps to take the checkered flag, putting the period on the sentence and earning him the nickname, “The Closer.”
Unless you’re an aficionado of Kyra Sedgwick’s hit TV show, you probably know that “The Closer” is a term most often used in baseball. It refers to a pitcher who specializes in coming in late in the game to get the final outs and seal the deal. In other words, the door may still be open just a crack for the opposition, but he closes it.
Open doors are sometimes used as an analogy for success in other aspects of life, but to stock car racing competitors, it seems closed ones might be better.
Maybe the true definition of a “NASCAR closer” is someone who is not only willing to slam that door, but will then nail it shut, remove the knob, use epoxy to apply weather stripping around all four sides, and then lay a wall of bricks in front of it.
Chase drivers beware: I heard someone just spotted Kevin Harvick walking around with a toolbox.
