Kevin Harvick

Kevin Harvick is making a habit of winning races at Daytona as the field wrecks behind him. As Casey Mears, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson twisted and turned into clouds of smoke, Harvick pushed past race leader Jamie McMurray. He won Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout, a race that had a record eight cautions, a record 14 leaders and a record 23 lead changes. Harvick pulled ahead at just the right time for his first victory in a year and a half.

Kevin Harvick will start from the pole in today's Nationwide Series race after topping the field in qualifying with a speed of 188 mph Friday. This is his first pole in a Nationwide race at Daytona. "We want to get off on the right foot," Harvick said. "It's good to come out of the box and run well. Hopefully that momentum keeps going from week to week." It wasn't all good news for Harvick. He has to use his backup Chevrolet in the Daytona 500 on Sunday and will start 32nd.

Kevin Harvick enjoys racing at Infineon Raceway here because it offers the chance to see family and friends in his hometown of Bakersfield. But there's another opportunity the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver hopes to exploit in today's Toyota/Save Mart 350: ending the worst dry spell of his nine-year Cup career.Harvick, who drives for Richard Childress Racing, has gone 86 points races without a victory since his Daytona 500 win in 2007, when he nipped Mark Martin in a photo finish.

Kasey Kahne gave himself a huge boost in the Chase for the Sprint Cup with a victory Sunday night in the Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Kahne jumped from 11th to sixth in the Sprint Cup standings with the victory, allowing him to breathe a little easier going into next weekend's race at Richmond, Va., that will set the 12-driver field for the season-ending playoff. Kevin Harvick, who won the Nationwide race Saturday night, was in position for a weekend double until teammate Clint Bowyer spun with 15 laps to go, bringing out the last caution.

Kevin Harvick has been to Daytona's Victory Lane before -- just not as a driver. "I went there the last two years as a car owner," Harvick said Saturday after driving to his first win at Daytona International Speedway. "This is more fun." Harvick, who ran away with the 2006 NASCAR Busch Series title, started the season with his 27th Busch victory. This time, he was driving for Richard Childress, who also fields his Nextel Cup Chevrolets.

Sunday was the sixth anniversary of Dale Earnhardt's slamming into the Turn 4 wall on the last lap of the Daytona 500, a crash that cost the legendary stock car driver his life. Six years later, Kevin Harvick, the Bakersfield driver who succeeded Earnhardt behind the wheel of owner Richard Childress' Chevrolet, won one of the closest Daytona 500s in history after catching Mark Martin in Turn 4 on the last lap.

Kevin Harvick had Matt Kenseth in his sights. And he had momentum on his side. What he didn't have was the same fortune that propelled him to the Daytona 500 victory a week ago. The Bakersfield driver had shown in the last 20 laps of the Auto Club 500 that he was faster than Kenseth, who seemed to have the car to beat for most of the race's 250 laps at California Speedway. But Harvick's fortunes unraveled in a twist that left him in 17th place, the last car on the lead lap.

The NASCAR Nextel Cup season that began in such promising fashion for Kevin Harvick, winning the Daytona 500, didn't live up to his hopes or expectations. The Richard Childress Racing driver did make it into the 12-man Chase for the championship, but he failed to win another Cup race and wound up 10th in the points -- not exactly the stuff of dreams.

Kevin Harvick avoided a spree of wrecks to win his second consecutive Busch Series race Friday night at Phoenix International Raceway. Harvick, one of several Nextel Cup regulars who also drive on the Busch circuit, held off Reed Sorenson to win the Bashas' Supermarkets 200 in a two-lap, "green-white-checkered" finish that was brought on by the last of 10 caution flags. Harvick, a native of Bakersfield, also won the Pepsi 300 last week in Nashville, Tenn.