Pit road speedsters on NASCAR’s radar heading into Kobalt 400

Pole winner Kevin Harvick takes his helmet off in the garage during practice for the NASCAR Monster Cup series auto race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga., Saturday, March 4, 2017. (AP Photo/John Amis)

As he literally sped down pit road following his final pit stop at Atlanta, Kevin Harvick’s fate was foretold by the quarter panels of his NASCAR Ford.

“Freaky Fast,” it said, an homage to the Jimmy John’s sandwich shop chain, one of his primary sponsors.

It would have been better for Harvick had his sponsor been Slo Poke candy or a producer of sloe gin.

Harvick had led 292 laps and was headed to a dominating victory when caught speeding on pit road, handing the win to Brad Keselowski. NASCAR meted out a whopping 13 penalties for exceeding the pit road speed limit, including two to Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time series champion.

Could a speeding ticket also determine the outcome of Sunday’s Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway?

It could.

It nearly did last year.

NASCAR wrote 13 speeding tickets at LVMS in 2016. Being sent to the rear of the field nearly cost Keselowski the win, but Roger Penske’s driver was able to race his way back to the front after being docked on lap 179 of 267.

Harvick was driving a rocket ship in Atlanta, but he simply didn’t have enough laps to make up the distance after being penalized with 11 laps to go.

“I was going too fast on pit road, apparently,” he told Green Valley High’s Jamie Little during the postrace debriefing. “I didn’t think I was pushing it that close …”

Neither did the other drivers.

Cup Series cars are not equipped with speedometers, so pit road speed is measured by a tachometer and a system of lights, which are supposed to flash when the speed limit is approached. Drivers use the flashing lights to adjust their speed as they roll through speed sensors, but it’s obviously an inexact science.

“It’s really a fine line if you’re running right at that mph (limit),” Kasey Kahne said. “I think early in the year is a lot more difficult than once we get that routine going.”

Johnson was stunned about getting caught twice. “The first one, I’m sure I could have gotten popped. The second one, I made sure I didn’t get popped again, and I still got in trouble. So we might have something off on our end.”

And this, from Chase Elliott: “There’s something that I think a lot of guys are kind of aware of that goes on on pit road, and that’s something we need to address kind of internally.”

Kyle Larson, the second-place finisher at Atlanta, said NASCAR has extended the speeding zones in the pits and that’s what Elliott probably was referring to.

“I stayed pretty cautious on my pit road lights because everybody was getting popped,” said the Target Chevrolet driver. “I was very shocked that Kevin had gotten caught that last pit stop. Me and Chase were closing on him down pit road.”

Getting caught speeding during an auto race seems a contradiction. Adjustments almost certainly will be made before Sunday’s race, because nobody is immune.

Race fans probably will never forget Kurt Busch passing Larson on the last lap for a long-awaited victory at the Daytona 500. They may not remember Busch was penalized for speeding on his first pit stop.

When it comes to being Freaky Fast in the pits, nobody gets off with a warning. Not Kevin Harvick. Not Kurt Busch.

Not even Jimmie Johnson.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.