NASCAR: 5 Lessons Learned From the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta

All It Takes is a Costly Mistake

Here’s an important lesson that will come up more than once this year:

If you are leading the race with less than 15 laps to go and see that over 10 pit road speeding penalties have been handed out, take your time heading into pit road. Coming out a little slower than normal is always better than getting a pit road speeding penalty.

Pit road penalties were the biggest issue at Atlanta this Sunday, and Kevin Harvick could have had a dominant win if he had taken his time on pit road and learned from the other top drivers that suffered speeding penalties throughout the day.

"“I just hate donking them myself, and making the kind of mistake I preach about all the time that we don’t need to make; to beat yourself.” h/t Fox Sports"

Harvick led 293 of 312 laps and was untouchable throughout the race. Stages didn’t impact his lead, cautions for debris also had no impact. His undoing would come at his own hands as he went to pit road during the last caution of the race, got caught speeding on pit road and watched his dominant lead come to an end.

He finished ninth at Atlanta but is still first in points after controlling the first two stages of the race.

Harvick shouldn’t feel too bad about his pit road mistake at Atlanta. Several top drivers fell to the pit road speed monitoring and it probably won’t be the last time a costly mistake in the pits costs him a win.

Still, it’s a valuable lesson to be learned and re-learned for every driver. Sometimes trying to rush out of the pits can be much more costly than taking your time.