Catchfence

Gastonia, N.C. (August 16, 2010) – The day couldn’t get much better for Kevin Harvick.

Harvick beat Denny Hamlin to the checkered flag by 1.731 seconds to win the CARFAX 400 at Michigan International Speedway.  He clinched a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.  He scored the first victory for Richard Childress Racing at MIS since 1990.  And he has firmly established himself as the leading championship contender.

Cars equipped with WIX Filters, a member of the Affinia Group family of brands, have now won 15 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins in 2010 (including the Daytona 500, Brickyard 400 plus the Budweiser Shootout and Gatorade Duel special event races).

“It’s been obviously a great day for us,” Havick said immediately after the race.  “It’s really been a great weekend all around and a great year, for that fact.  It’s a lot of fun to come to the racetrack right now.  Everybody is doing a great job of not only continuing to press but to put better things on the racetrack and put things together correctly and just do a great job at the shop.

“That’s really all you can ask for right now is to have a chance.  You’re going to have the flat tires, the miscues, stuff happen.  It’s just a matter of how you rebound.  Today we didn’t have to do anything.  We were able to take advantage of a really fast racecar and put it where it was supposed to be and that’s in victory lane.

“I think the quality control we have at the shop is really good as far as analyzing the parts, making sure that the cars are within the tolerances.  In the wind tunnel, the guys are doing a great job of making sure the numbers are what we need to be as to what Gil [Martin, crew chief] thinks they need to be for me to drive.  The people touching the cars right now are doing a good job of making sure that the right stuff is leaving the shop.  That’s really what all these cars are all about.”

Richard Childress, Harvick’s car owner, was proud of his organization and the job done by both Harvick and Martin.

“To come up here and win in Detroit, in Michigan, for GM, to win in that Chevy Impala is big for us,” Childress said.  “It’s been 20 years since RCR won [at Michigan].  Kevin almost had the race several years ago.  We broke a distributor.  I can remember that one.  We’ve had some really good runs.  But to be able to put it together today, Kevin, he’s figured out how to make this thing work in the groove.  He’s got his own groove better than anyone.”

Martin made a gusty pit call with just 30 laps to go in the race, choosing to keep Harvick on the track during the final caution and not pit for tires.  Martin said that Tony Stewart staying out plus the absence of cautions near the end of the race play to their advantage.

“Clean air was a big bonus today,” Martin said.  “With Tony staying out, knowing we had somebody to draft with, then hopefully a lot of guys would get two in between us, and they the way everybody fanned out, it almost gave a parachute effect to the back portion of the field, that the tires couldn’t overcome the aero push.  Not having any cautions at the end led us to where we could stretch out.  If we could get four or five laps, let the tires heat up, we could stretch it out, because we were probably on average about two tenths better than the field most of the run.  When it got deeper in the run, it came more than that.”

The victory was Harvick’s third of the 2010 season and he stretched his lead in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship standings to 293 points over second-place Jeff Gordon and 353 over third-place Denny Hamlin.  Harvick won for the first time in 20 races at Michigan and grabbed his 14^th victory in 345 career starts.

Harvick averaged 144.029 mph in a race that took 2 hours, 46 minutes and 38 seconds to complete.  There were 17 lead changes among nine drivers in a race that was slowed by five cautions for 25 laps.

Since 1939, WIX® Filters, a member of the Affinia Group family of brands, has been an innovator in filtration products. WIX designs, manufactures and distributes products for automotive, diesel, agricultural, industrial and specialty filter markets. Its product line includes oil, air, cabin interior, fuel, coolant, transmission and hydraulic filters for automobiles, trucks and off-road equipment. WIX, a member of the Affinia family of brands, is the number one filter in NASCAR and an exclusive NASCAR Performance Product. Its NASCAR relationship also includes the WIX Filters Lap Leader Award, which recognizes the drivers leading the most laps in each race. For more information, visit www.wixfilters.com.

Affinia Group Inc. is an innovative global leader in the design, manufacture, distribution and marketing of industrial grade products and services, including extensive offerings of aftermarket parts for automotive and heavy-duty vehicles. With more than $2 billion in annual revenue, Affinia has operations in North and South America, Europe, Asia and India. For more information, visit www.affiniagroup.com.

*Affinia Group Inc.’s affiliated companies include Brake Parts Inc. WIX Filtration Corp LLC, Affinia Products  Corp LLC and other high quality manufacturers of the Affinia family of brands.

- Camp & Associates, Inc., for WIX Filters, Press Release