Morton Buildings knew its first foray into NASCAR would be successful when a partnership was announced with 16-year NASCAR veteran Kevin Harvick last winter. Harvick delivered for Morton last Saturday, driving his No. 5 Morton Buildings Chevrolet to a fourth-place finish in front of a national ESPN audience at the NASCAR Nationwide Series Lilly Diabetes 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“We truly enjoyed the NASCAR experience and the positive exposure we’ve received,” Morton Buildings marketing manager Brian Haraf said. “We definitely want to say thank you to NASCAR and its tremendous fans for the experience. Working with Kevin has been great and he represented us very well. We’re looking forward to working with him again later this season.”
Making his ninth NASCAR Nationwide Series start of the season, Harvick led 33 of 100 laps en route to his fourth-place showing. The result marked his 19th consecutive top-10 finish on the Nationwide circuit dating back to March 2013. The Bakersfield, Calif. native owns 42 career wins and has finished 10th or better in 230 of his 310 career Nationwide starts.
Despite finishing fourth out of 40 drivers, the 16-year Nationwide Series veteran expressed a bit of disappointment after the race.
“I’ve got to thank everybody from JR Motorsports and Morton Buildings for giving us the fastest car in the field,” Harvick told NASCAR.com Saturday. “We just didn’t capitalize on it.”
Ty Dillon won the race, his first Nationwide victory. The 22-year-old from Lewisville N.C. was making his 31st career start.
Saturday’s race in Indianapolis did not mark the end of Morton’s partnership with Harvick and NASCAR. Morton Buildings will serve as the primary sponsor of Harvick when the NASCAR Nationwide Series visits Kansas City, Kan. for the Kansas Lottery 300 on Oct. 4. The race will be broadcast nationally on ESPN2 at 3:30 p.m. ET.