Damage and Dings at Dover
Harvick survives Monster Mash to finish 10th

The MBNA 400 – "A Salute to Heroes" – will go down in the books as one of the strangest and most confusing events ever contested on the high banks of Dover International Speedway. And somehow, through it all, Team Timken's Kevin Harvick managed to maintain his sense of humor. 

There was nothing so unusual about the first 350 laps of the 400-lap race, but that's when things got interesting. A caution flag following a round of green flag pit stops jumbled up the running order so badly that it took NASCAR officials more than 30 laps to sort it out. When they did the restart, officials saw the leader deep in the pack with several cars starting just ahead. "I don't believe all this," said Harvick, who was able to continue despite some damage to his Chevrolet. "I've seen a lot throughout my career, but I've never seen so much stuff torn up before—maybe at Talladega or Daytona, but not some place like here. It's hard not to laugh, but it's kind of funny.” 

When the green flag flew everybody scrambled for position, the sheet metal started flying. When the smoke cleared 18 cars including Harvick and Robby Gordon had been involved in some way, shape or form. The red flag was displayed for nearly twenty minutes before the race could get back underway, but the hits just kept on coming. With nine laps to go the leader slid in the oil from another competitor's blown engine and the race was stopped for another twenty minutes. Thankfully, the final nine laps were clean and green and Harvick was able to hold on for his sixth top-10 finish of the season. More importantly after dropping in the point standings for the past three weeks, Harvick is headed in the right direction as he moved up one spot to ninth overall. 

"Our car was good especially there towards the end," Harvick said. "It just took a few extra laps to get going and that hurt me with all of those late cautions. I'm proud of the guys for sticking with it. We'll definitely take tenth. That will help us in the points and we didn't have to do much at the end, we just finished the race. This has got to be one of the longest days I have ever spent in Dover. It's going to be a race to remember."

Robby Gordon managed to bounce back after his involvement in “The Big One” to finish 14th while Johnny Sauter rounded out Team Timken's effort with a 20th place finish. 

The circuit's only triangular shaped racetrack will play host to the Nextel Series next weekend when the competitors head to the mountains of Pennsylvania to Pocono Raceway. The Timken Company is a technical sponsor for Richard Childress Racing for the 2004 season.