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Harvick out to stop elimination

CONCORD, N.C. — This is it for Kevin Harvick, a winner of nine races just last year and now on the verge of his earliest career playoff knockout. The steadiest guy in the garage is winless this season — he’s on a 38-race losing streak — and needs a big day at Charlotte Motor Speedway to avoid playoff elimination.

Harvick has made it through the second round of the playoffs every year since the elimination format started in 2014, the year he won his only Cup title. Harvick is such a solid bet to be a contender because he’s always in the hunt, always among the leaders, and he’s advanced to the championship round in five of seven seasons.

And yet he heads to the Roval at Charlotte on Sunday ranked ninth in the standings, the first driver below the cutline. The field will be trimmed from 12 to eight after this race, and Harvick lags nine points below the final transfer position.

Harvick, the same guy who slammed his helmet in rage after on-track shenanigans with reigning champion Chase Elliott cost him a win last month, was surreally serene headed into the make-or-break race.

“I’m kind of a creature of habit, do the same things on a weekly basis, and it’s just another race,” Harvick said. “I know that sounds cliché and boring and all the things that come with that, but you just have to go out there and do what you do, the best you can, and see where it falls.”

It’s been a bad year at Stewart-Haas Racing and Harvick and the No. 4 team are the biggest losers. They dominated all the way up until the third-round finale last season and this year have been fairly mediocre.

His eight top-fives and 21 top-10s are the lowest since 2012, but even in that uncharacteristically off year Harvick still won one race. Harvick’s best shot was at Bristol in the first-round finale but Elliott, angry at Harvick over another on-track incident, intentionally slowed Harvick to help Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson catch Harvick and steal the win.

The second round has been OK — Harvick was ninth at Las Vegas, and he was running eighth on Monday when Talladega was called for rain — but that’s not good enough. Harvick, Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick teammates William Byron and Alex Bowman are all below the cutline going into the Roval, a hybrid track that uses both the road course and oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Denny Hamlin is the only driver locked into the third round and Harvick doesn’t need a win to advance. It’s tight right ahead of him and Kyle Busch and Elliott are tied for the final two spots, only nine points ahead of Harvick. Ryan Blaney, in sixth, only has a 15-point cushion.

A top-five for Harvick coupled with a disaster for any of the other three might be enough to get Harvick through to the round of eight.

Hamilton’s pole perfect damage limitation

World champion Lewis Hamilton’s record-extending 102nd Formula One pole position on Saturday was a perfect case of damage limitation considering his 10-place grid penalty.

Although the seven-time F1 champion will start from 11th, he’s still in a good position to score some big points in Sunday’s race, where title rival Max Verstappen starts from second behind Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.

Hamilton finished .13 seconds ahead of Bottas and .33 ahead of Verstappen — the same as Verstappen’s car number — but all the leading drivers move up one slot. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc goes from third with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly in fourth.

It leaves Verstappen well poised to close the two-point gap and reclaim the championship lead from Hamilton in a thrilling battle that could go to the wire with six races left after this one.

Verstappen has made blistering starts this season and will be confident of an 18th career win, providing he gets by Bottas early on.

“I hope for a clean getaway but starting on the inside will be tricky. There is very low grip in both dry and wet conditions compared to the outside,” he said. “We’ll try everything we can to keep the Mercedes behind but it’s not going to be easy, they’ve had great pace all weekend.”

Hamilton’s grid penalty was for going over his allocation of three combustion engines for the season. He will go for a record-extending 101st F1 win, although that will prove difficult with so much quality traffic in front of him. Hamilton also has to get past two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso — who showed in Hungary he’s still an absolute master at defensive driving — McLaren’s speedy Lando Norris and Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez.

Gay says mental health is a struggle

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Chiefs second-year linebacker Willie Gay Jr. posted on social media that he is struggling with his mental health.

“I love you all,” Gay tweeted, adding, “just know my mental health is F’d up.”

Gay offered no specifics in the tweet, which was posted soon after Chiefs coach Andy Reid said Gay was excused from practice for “personal reasons.”

Gay, 23, returned to practice just this week after coming off injured reserve.

Reid said that, “We’ll get him out there and see what he can do. It looks like he’s running around pretty good. We’ll see when we get to the football side of it.”

Gay hurt his toe and landed on the IR list in early September, and the Chiefs now have a 21-day window to activate him.