Harvick goes all out

Kevin Harvick saw the hole in front of him, a small patch of open track between two other cars.

Driving through it would be risky, but Harvick’s never shied away from taking chances. So he shoved his Chevrolet in between Denny Hamlin and Jeff Burton, forcing his way to the front and running away with the win Sunday at New Hampshire International Speedway at Loudon, N.H.

This is how Harvick plans to run for his first Nextel Cup title: Unafraid, unapologetic and with everything he’s got.

“At this point, it’s all about the championship and going for it and throwing caution to the wind,” Harvick said of his three-wide pass just 37 laps into the race. “If you look back on it, I probably wouldn’t do that again.”

Harvick turned New Hampshire International Speedway into his personal playground, dominating the entire weekend to take the early lead in NASCAR’s Chase for the championship.

Harvick, who started from the pole and paced almost every practice session, led 196 of the 300 laps to run away with the first round of the 10-race Chase. He moved to the top of the points standings for the first time in his career, and holds a 35-point lead over rookie Denny Hamlin, who finished fourth.

“We sure have the momentum right now,” said Harvick, who won for the second straight week and fourth time this season.

Defending series champion Tony Stewart, who did not make the Chase this season and isn’t eligible for the championship, finished second in one of the more nerve-racking races of his career. Although he wants to run hard these final 10 races, he’s struggling to find the balance between doing so and being respectful of the 10 drivers battling to take his title.

Jeff Gordon was third and jumped all the way up to fourth in the standings, the lone bright spot in an otherwise dismal day for Hendrick Motorsports. Chase drivers Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson both wrecked early, finished 38th and 39th, and dropped to the back of the 10-driver championship field.

Indeed, the championship can be lost in the first round of the Chase, and it happened in each of the first two seasons of NASCAR’s new format.

Stewart, Ryan Newman and Jeremy Mayfield all were taken out of contention in 2004 following an early accident at this 1.058-mile oval.

Then defending series champion Kurt Busch suffered the same fate last season when he was wrecked moments into the race.

So the tone was set Sunday, with Harvick establishing early that he’s the driver to beat. The other Chase contenders held their own, with everyone but Johnson and Busch finishing in the top 16.

Busch’s day went bad on the very first lap, when he cut off Jeff Green and the contact caused enough damage to his Chevrolet that he had to pit several times and dropped a lap down. A second accident 100 miles from the finish dropped him to a 38th-place finish.

Johnson, winner of the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard, had hoped to celebrate his 31st birthday with a strong run. Instead, he lost a cylinder early in the race to put his team on edge and afraid of a total engine failure. But they didn’t have to worry very long: Johnson was run into the wall shortly after when Sterling Marlin swerved to avoid hitting other cars.

The hard hit destroyed the No. 48 Chevrolet and demoralized a team that had hoped this was finally its year to win that elusive title.

Even if he does rebound, it will be hard for anyone to catch Harvick, who won for the third time in the past six races and second in a row.