Harvick Doubles Down With Victory in Las Vegas

Originally written for CLNS Media.

Kevin Harvick won the Pennzoil 400 from Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday.

Harvick dominated the race for the second week in a row, and led a race-high 214 laps.  After winning both stages on Sunday, Harvick already has 13 playoff points to use when NASCAR’s playoffs begin in September.

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Harvick said his team’s strong start actually began last season.

“These last two weeks we’ve just hit on what we needed to,” Harvick said.  “This stems back to when our 1.5 mile program got so much better at the end of the year.”

“They’ve done their homework when it comes to a number of things.”

The victory was also Harvick’s 100th across NASCAR’s three national touring series.  Harvick now joins Richard Petty, Kyle Busch and David Pearson as the only drivers with 100 NASCAR wins.

Harvick said the victories were a testament to the teams he’s been with throughout his NASCAR career.

“Winning 100 races is something I never thought I’d be able to do,” Harvick said.  “They’re hard to win…I’ve been fortunate to sit in a lot of good racecars.”

Busch finished second on Sunday, but he was never able to get close enough to Harvick to challenge for the victory.

Busch said no one could compete with Harvick throughout the weekend.

“Our M&M’s Camry was really strong the last 100 laps of the race,” Busch said.  “No catching that 4 [of Harvick]; they were just on rails today and lights out.”

“I don’t know what we have to do better to catch up to those guys, but obviously we’ve got some work to do to get a little bit better.”

Unofficial results:

1. Kevin Harvick

2. Kyle Busch

3. Kyle Larson

4. Martin Truex Jr.

5. Ryan Blaney

6. Brad Keselowski

7. Joey Logano

8. Erik Jones

9. Paul Menard

10. Aric Almirola

11. Ryan Newman

12. Jimmie Johnson

13. Austin Dillon

14. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

15. Chris Buescher

16. Alex Bowman

17. Denny Hamlin

18. Clint Bowyer

19. Kasey Kahne

20. Trevor Bayne

21. Darrell Wallace Jr.

22. Matt DiBenedetto

23. David Ragan

24. Ty Dillon

25. Cole Custer

26. Daniel Suarez

27. William Byron

28. Cole Whitt

29. Ross Chastain

30. AJ Allmendinger

31. Jeffrey Earnhardt

32. Joey Gase

33. Gray Gaulding

34. Chase Elliott

35. Kurt Busch

36. Jamie McMurray

37. Michael McDowell

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