Harvick wins 2nd straight Busch Series race
Driver holds on through several cautions for victory at Phoenix
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AVONDALE, Ariz. - Kevin Harvick won his second consecutive Busch Series race Friday night, holding on through several late cautions and an overtime finish at Phoenix International Raceway.
Harvick, who also won last weekend in Nashville, Tenn., helped Nextel Cup regulars remain undefeated in the lower-tier Busch Series. Cup drivers have captured all nine events this season; Harvick is the only repeat winner.
It was Harvick’s 19th career victory, and it extended his lead in the standings to 289 points over Clint Bowyer.
“It’s a lot easier to lose the points than it is to gain the points,” Harvick said. “This Busch Series is tough and there will be somebody who will make a run at me sooner or later.”
The race had 10 cautions, but four of them came in the final 27 laps — including David Gilliland’s accident with Bowyer with two laps to go to set up the overtime finish.
“We got to like 16, 17 to go, and I said ‘OK, we’re going to be OK,”’ Harvick said. “And then here came the first caution, and then a few more came. I figured if I could make it through the first turn (on the restarts) without getting hit or something going wrong, I thought we were going to be OK.”
Harvick started the final sprint out front with Reed Sorenson and Carl Edwards stacked up right behind him, and neither mounted a challenge.
Sorenson finished second, followed by Edwards, Kurt Busch and Mark Martin.
“I was trying hard to win that one,” Sorenson said. “Kevin had a really good car. I think if we didn’t have so many yellows, maybe we would have had a better shot.”
Edwards was done in on the final restart.
“I just got a little bit of a poor restart and I never had anything for Reed or Kevin,” Edwards said.
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Harvick led 53 of the 206 laps, and even showed a little bit of a soft side during the race when he notified nemesis Busch that he had a flat tire.
Busch didn’t believe him at first.
“Can you blame him?” Harvick joked, referring to their long-running feud.
Asked why he bothered to inform Busch, Harvick said it was out of safety concerns.
“There’s something different between having a little bit of beef with somebody and taking the chance of letting someone get hurt,” Harvick said.
Matt Kenseth was seventh, and was followed by Casey Mears, David Green — the highest finishing Busch regular — and Jamie McMurray.
The race was fairly uneventful until the late action.
The seventh caution came out with 27 laps to go when Casey Mears and John Andretti had slight contact, and Andretti went into a spin. Traffic slowed behind him to avoid hitting him, but Johnny Sauter still slammed straight into Andretti. Scott Riggs also was collected.
It was followed by a round of pit stops, Harvick retained his lead coming out of the service call. The race resumed with 18 to go, but didn’t stay green for long: Paul Menard ran into the back of J.J. Yeley to bring out an eighth caution with 16 to go.
Racing resumed with 12 to go, but lasted just one lap before a multi-crash brought out yet another yellow flag. This one earned Bowyer a penalty for rough driving — he hit Jason Leffler to spin him out and start the accident.
It seemed like Harvick then had a clear path at the win, but the 10th caution came out with two to go when Gilliland bounced off the wall, starting an accident that collected Bowyer and bringing out an overtime finish.
Bowyer, who easily had a shot at a top five finish, wound up 21st and lost even more ground to Harvick in the standings.
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