Team Timken Turns It Around at The Brickyard

There's no place better than Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a team to turn its season around and led by Kevin Harvick's first victory of the season, Team Timken is hoping they've done just that. 

In scoring his fourth career victory, Harvick became the first driver in the ten-year history of the Brickyard 400 to win the event from the pole. And Harvick didn't just win the pole.
He set a new track record of 184.343 mph, shattering the old standard set by Winston Cup Champion Tony Stewart in 2002. 

Harvick's race-winning pass for the lead came on a restart with 16 laps to go when then leader Jamie McMurray got hung up behind lapped traffic. Harvick, who was running second, took advantage of McMurray's uncomfortable position and dove to the inside for the lead. 

A multi-car crash brought out the fifth caution of the race and triggered a final ten-lap shootout with Harvick out front and Robby Gordon hugging his back bumper in the runner-up spot. When the green flag fell, Gordon's Chevrolet started to fade but he successfully ran interference for his teammate as Harvick scooted away unchallenged and drove on to the checkers. 

""I can't believe this!" Harvick exclaimed. "To win the Brickyard 400 as our first race this year is just awesome for this team. I don't even know it I can explain it. I'm in awe right now with all these people around looking at you. Just knowing who has been here and what's been here in victory lane is an awesome feeling. 

"Robby did all he could to hold those guys back and give us a cushion. This win is as much his and it is ours and is as important to the company and all the teams.

Gordon came home sixth to record his best finish in four series events at the 2.5-mile speedway. It was a hard fought top ten finish for Gordon after trouble on an early pit stop dropped him a lap behind the leaders and forced him to play catch up the rest of the day. 

"We had to do strategy because we got ourselves in a position where we had a bad pit stop," Gordon explained. "From what they tell me, the vent can fell out and it wasn't filling. We went from 8th to 30th and lost a lap, and we had to fight back. I'm happy for Kevin Harvick to win. At least my setup went somewhere good."

Steve Park rounded out the all top-15 day for Team Timken with a 15th-place finish.

The Timken Company is a technical sponsor of Richard Childress racing for the 2003 season. The Winston Cup competitors will get their final crack at a road course next weekend when they travel to the Finger Lakes Region of New York to do battle at Watkins Glen International.