Kevin Harvick dominates Vegas for back-to-back NASCAR wins
LAS VEGAS – From his dynamic opening laps to his comfortable cruise to the checkered flag, Kevin Harvick was the safest bet in Sin City this weekend.
Harvick’s air of inevitability increased with each lap around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, and the rest of the NASCAR Cup field must be a bit worried about how they’re going to catch up this year.
Harvick raced to his second straight NASCAR Cup win with a dominant performance in Vegas on Sunday, earning his 100th career win across the three national series.
“There was no catching that 4 (car),” second-place finisher Kyle Busch said. “He was on rails, and lights out.”
Harvick followed up his stellar performance last weekend in Atlanta with another victory in his Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. He led a track-record 214 of the 267 laps, won all three stages and capably held off Busch’s late hometown charge to win in Vegas for the second time in four years.
“These last two weeks, we’ve just hit on everything we needed to,” said Harvick, who cruised home 2.9 seconds ahead of Busch. “My (team has) done their homework on a number of things. Just really proud of everybody.”
Busch got close to his second career victory in his hometown with his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, but couldn’t overcome the dominant leader. Kyle Larson finished third after winning the Xfinity Series race on Saturday, while defending champion Martin Truex Jr. was in fourth and pole-sitter Ryan Blaney in fifth.
Harvick has already matched his Cup win total from last season in three races – and he’s headed to Phoenix, where he has won five times since 2012.
Harvick also took a moment to savor a milestone. Only Richard Petty, Kyle Busch and David Pearson have won more races across the three national circuits than Harvick, the 42-year-old Californian with plenty of good years left on his tires.
“It’s been a lot of years accumulated with a lot of great race teams and people and situations,” Harvick said. “When you tag that triple-digit number to it, it really lets you realize that you’ve been fortunate to accomplish a lot of things.”
Not many wins are more emphatic than Harvick’s 100th.
Harvick led 144 of the first 160 laps and comfortably won the first two stages. He was fourth out of the end-of-stage caution after Stage 2, with Joey Logano getting in front with an exceptional pit stop.
But Harvick reclaimed the lead off another restart with 73 laps to go after Kurt Busch wrecked along with Chase Elliott. Harvick emerged from his last pit stop with a three-second lead on Brad Keselowski, and Busch couldn’t catch up.