Harvick cruises to victory
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The good news for NASCAR Busch Series regulars is that Kevin Harvick doesn’t plan to defend his title this year.
The bad news is that he hasn’t departed entirely.
A Nextel Cup Series front-runner who won nine Busch races and clinched his second championship with four races to spare, Harvick picked up Saturday precisely where he’d left off in 2006.
The 31-year-old Californian drove his Chevrolet through the field, led the final 42 laps of the season-opening Orbitz 300 virtually unchallenged and collected his first victory at Daytona International Speedway in 35 starts in four divisions.
“I told them if we could ever get all the way to the front, we were going to be in pretty good shape,” said Harvick, who started 31st. “The whole last run, I never had to lift (the gas pedal) off the floor.”
The victory was No. 27 in the Busch Series for Harvick, the 2001 and ‘06 champ. None of the first 26 had come at either of NASCAR’s longest and fastest tracks, Daytona or Talladega (Ala.) superspeedway.
Dave Blaney finished second, 46-hundredths of a second behind, even with minor damage to the body of his Toyota.
Carl Edwards used drafting help from teammate Mark Martin to edge Clint Bowyer on the final lap for third place. Martin took fifth.
Kyle Busch, who dominated the first half of the race, slowed on the 78th lap and fell to 37th because of a faulty fuel pump. The experimental piece also is to be used on his team’s Nextel Cup cars today in the Daytona 500.
Now for those keeping track of the Busch Series’ main man, Harvick has 25 more races on his schedule.
Waltrip still searching
Michael Waltrip spent the last week hoping someone would take responsibility for the fuel additive that led to NASCAR sanctions and prompted Toyota to reevaluate its relationship with the two-time Daytona 500 winner.
He’s still waiting.
“We just keep digging, digging, digging,” Waltrip said Saturday. “Toyota’s going to help us. A lot of people are going to help us. We’re going to find out what happened.”
Waltrip added that if anyone is implicated in the cheating scandal, that person likely would be fired.