Harvick led 100 of 130 laps in the second race of the Camping World Truck season and drove off fom Kyle Busch at the end, having a 1.3 second lead taking the win over Busch. They both were driving their own Trucks.

Harvick led the final 56 laps.

“I never let off over I don’t know how many laps (to the finish),” Harvick said. “The only chance they had was on the restarts. It was a lot of fun. We’ll keep at it.”

Harvick’s truck handled great all day and the team only had to make one minor tire-pressure change all day.

Harvick has won in all three major NASCAR series at Atlanta and at Phoenix International Raceway.

  

Following Busch at the finish were Aric Almirola, Steve Wallace in his Truck debut and Todd Bodine rouding out the top five.

Rookie Austin Dillon, running the No. 3 truck for Richard Childress Racing, finished 10th. The finish was a boost for Dillon, who crashed at the start of the Truck opener at Daytona International Speedway last month. “It was a long wait to get back in it again,” Dillon said. “I’ve been thinking all this time about what I could have done differently at Daytona.”

Pole winner Ron Hornaday crashed out after 22 laps his tire got cut after he and Busch got together earlier in the race in a three wide battle with Matt Crafton. Crafton was involved in three cautions and finished 27th.

Busch was in the middle of the accident that booted Hornaday from the competition.

“We went three wide into there, and when I got down there I don’t know if Crafton went up or the 33 (Hornaday) came down, but I got squeezed in the middle,”

Busch said. The contact caused minor right-front damage to Busch’s truck.
Busch was much more concerned with an incident that involved Boris Said in the day’s final Sprint Cup practice.

“He shouldn’t even be on the track,” Busch said of Said. “He bought his way into points and a ride. He was running in the middle of the track when he should have been on the outside.”

LINK > RACE RESULTS: Atlanta 200 – ATLANTA

Author:
Mike Hembree from Seed TV contributed to this report

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And, as always, it ought to be a flat-out hard racing at the 1.54-mile AMS oval, one of the fastest tracks on the circuit.

Kyle Busch, one of the race favorites has four victories in just five NCWTS starts here. At the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway, both Busch and teammate Tayler Malsam were caught in crashes not of their own making.

“Our short-term goals for this year are to just go out and try to win a race. I want to win a race, of course, but to go out and win multiple races would be a success,” said Kyle Busch, who is in his first year of NASCAR team ownership. “To win a race for Brian Ickler and to win a race for Tayler Malsam – we at least need three wins out of the shop this year, one for all three drivers – in order for it to be a success, in my book.”

Ron Hornaday Jr is another to contender to win at Atlanta he is a four-time and defending Truck Series champion . Out of the Kevin Harvick Inc. stables. Hornaday got a new crew chief this year in Dave Fuge, who lasted just one race before replaced by Doug George.

  

In nine races at AMS, Hornaday has one victory, four top-five and five top-10 finishes, and he and his No. 33 Longhorn Chevrolet likely will be strong on Saturday.

Steve Wallace, who will make his Truck Series debut Saturday. Will be driving for Billy Ballew Motorsports in the No.15 Red Top Auto Auction Toyota.

Wallace, who nornaly drives in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, said he will be ready to get it on in Hot ‘Lanta.

“This is going to be awesome,” said Wallace. “I’m really excited about getting behind the wheel of a truck. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I can’t think of a better way to start things off than driving for Billy . His teams run so well at Atlanta, which gives me a lot of confidence going into the weekend.”

Geoff Bodine, 60, is on the entry list to drive the No. 95 Team Gill Racing truck, which was driven by Johnny Benson in the season-opening race last month at Daytona.

Bodine helped make U.S. history last weekend at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. His Bo-Dyn four-man bobsled crew, led by driver Steve Holcomb, won America’s first gold medal in that competition since 1948.

Team owner Ballew is a Georgia native, hailing from Blairsville, and the team has enjoyed tremendous success at AMS, where it has three Truck Series race victories.

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Harvick had fast car all day dominating the race in the beginning, winding up in the middle of the pack because of to bad pit stops. After the second pit stop, Harvick told his crew over the radio they “looked like a bunch of idiots.”

After the race, he called his car “really fast. We definitely have some work to do on pit road. I get mad. They know how I am and know what I expect of them.”

Harvick made his way through the field to return to the lead and beat Denny Hamlin to the finish by 1.3 seconds. Following in the top five were Carl Edwards, Brad Keselowski and Brian Vickers.

Kyle Busch was contending for the lead towards the end of the race until he pushed a little to hard coming out of turn four slapping the wall, dropping him to 16th.

  

Danica Patrick’s third Nationwide race ended near the halfway point of the event when she and Michael McDowell got together going into turn one, and both cars slammed into the outside wall.

Patrick, who will take a four-month break from stock car racing while she concentrates on her IndyCar ride, finished 36th.

Danica pointed the blame at McDowell for turning down the track and causing the crash. “We had a good car, we really did,” Patrick said. “Unfortunately, we got caught in a bad situation with a driver who wasn’t looking and a spotter who wasn’t calling.”

Later in a interview McDowell to the blame for the wreck. “100 percent my fault. She was coming up on new tires and the closing rate was so fast. I closed the door.”

The beginning of the race was delayed for about an hour and a half due to rain, and the rain returned to put the race under caution just after half way. At that point, Busch had a 3.2-second lead over Vickers.

Several more cautions bunched the field, but the finally came down to  on whether Harvick’s car was strong enough to get him out front after the two bad pitstops. With 25 laps to go, he passed Hamlin for the lead and wasn’t challenged the rest of the way.

Results Sam’s Town 300

Speed TV contributed to this report

Busch, a native of Las Vegas, had things going his way on Friday afternoon, as his No. 2 Penske Racing Dodge Charger raced for the pole with a track record lap of 188.719 miles per hour. Auto Club Speedway in 2007 was the last pole Kurt Busch had.

Kurt Busch said that the team only made one mock-qualifying run during the practice session, where he failed to make the top 20. Steve Addington and Kurts put their heads together and made the right adjustments to put the Penske Dodge on the pole.

“It was really rough over the bumps, and that was all we focused on,” said Busch. “And I felt like that made the difference in the end. We didn’t really tighten the car up or loosen the car up, we just focused on those bumps.”

“I was getting up on the wheel, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I love Vegas, I love this atmosphere. I just need to get it together for the full 400 miles on Sunday.”

Up until Kurt’s qualifying run it was Henrick’s Motorsports up front.

Dale Earnhardt qualified second in his Hendrick No. 88 Chevy, and beat the track record by more than three-tenths of a second, stunning the field with a lap of 188.173 mph.

  

“It was a good lap,” Earnhardt said. “We worked really hard to get the National Guard Chevy as good as we could.”

It was looking as though Earnhardt’s speed might hold up and maybe give him his first pole since Texas in April 2008. Jeff Gordon came up later in the day and bumped Earnhardt off the pole with a blistering lap of 188.646 mph.

“I’m a little speechless, so ‘wow’ might be the only word I have,” said Gordon after his pole-winning lap. “That was
a really fun lap. Man, these guys have just done an awesome job. … I got both of ends of it pretty good, but it was on the edge.”

But Gordon’s didn’t stay on the pole for long, as Busch knocked Gordon off the pole putting him on outside of Row 1 with a lap that was .011 seconds quicker than Gordon.

There was a short interruption in qualifying  by a minor generator explosion in the infield. Nobody was reported injuried.

After it was all said and done, Kurt Busch had the pole, followed by Gordon, Ryan Newman, Earnhardt and Kyle Busch, the defending race winner.

The second five consisted of Joey Logano, Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya.

Results: Shelby American Qualifying

Speed TV contributed to this report

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With great start to the season by Kevin Harvick and the rest of Richard Childress Racing, they are trying to make the 2009 a thing of the past, and is wasting no time doing so. After two races this season, Kevin Harvick is the series points leader, Clint Bowyer is second and Jeff Burton is fifth.

This follows Sunday’s race at Auto Club Speedway where Harvick and Burton finished 2-3, with Bowyer eighth. Now all RCR needs is a victory. Harvick’s winless streak is up to 109 races. Burton has gone 43 races without a win, while Bowyer has gone 64.

  

Kurt and Kyle Busch head to their home town, Kyle Busch is the defending champion of Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the Shelby American. Kurt comes into this week’s race 11th in the series standings while Kyle is 13th.

It’s early in the season. But it’s just doesn’t seem right to see Jeff Gordon outside the top 20 at any point in the season.

After starting the season with two finishes outside the top 15, Gordon is in 21st in points. Just like a race at Auto Club Speedway came at the perfect time for Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, an event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway should lift Gordon.

Scott Speed is 15th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver points standings, while Paul Menard is 18th.

Both of those drivers are positioning their teams to be in the top 35 of car owner standings after the fifth week of the season. After Week 5, automatic starting spots are given to the top 35 teams. For the first five weeks, the final 2009 owner points are used.

Speed is being forced to qualify for races on time to start this year, since his team finished 36th in the 2009 owner standings.

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After a bad finish at Daytona Jimmie Johnson bounces back to wins his 48th race in the #48 Lowes Chevrolet at the Auto Club 500 in Fontana California.

Johnson led the last 24 laps of the race to beat out a hard charging Kevin Harvick. Harvick chased Johnson down in the last 20 laps, cutting down a two second Johnson lead. With only five laps to go Harvick slid coming out of turn 4 slapping the wall spoiling any chance to get by Jimmie Johnson.

“Life is good, man,” said Johnson, who is pursuing his fifth straight Sprint Cup championship. “We’re right back in victory lane.”

Luck was on Johnson’s side as with 27 laps to go Johnson pitted for his final stop of the race, and the caution came out for Brad Keselowski when he lost control and spun down the frontstrech, Johnson got  off of pit road just in time, so he would start up front on the restart.

“The fact that we were on pit road when the caution came out gave us track position, and we finally got the car turning,” Johnson said.

Harvick was pushing hard and said he lost control of his car trying to catch up to Johnson.

“The 48 saw me coming and moved up,” Harvick said. “I lost the nose of the car and got in the wall and knocked the right front fender in.”

Harvick who got a pit road speeding violation, putting him to the back of the field drove his car top the front to challenged Johnson at the end of the race.

Completing the top five were Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and Joey Logano.

  

“I think we have a little bit of work to do, although we won the race,” Johnson said. “We’ll just keep working hard. This is a good step in the right direction.”

The race saw a lot of different challengers at the front of the field, that were contributed by NASCAR’s new aero package and a new tire compound that Goodyear brought to the race. It was unbelievable at how many pit road violation there were considering NACAR warned the driver after the Nationwide race. Teams seemed to have more engine failures than normal, mostly thought do to the long green runs and the cooler weather making the engines rev higher and longer.

Kasey Kahne brought out the second caution when he lost control coming out of turn four spinning into the wet infield bending up the left side of the front splitter and right front fender damage.

Johnson, Harvick and Montoya were up front of the field for most of the first half of the race, round half way Montoya’s engine gave way ending the #42 Target’s car day.

A few laps later after spinning his tires on the restart, Ryan Newman blew his engine up big time on the fronstrech ending his day and giving Newman his second DNF of the season.

At lap 70 with bad weather threatening most  of the leaders were forced to make a green flag pit stop.

A light sprinkle bought out a caution with Denny Hamlin leading the race. A few laps into the caution Denny Hamlin was forced to pit giving up the lead to Scott Speed. Speed led a few laps under caution to get his 5 bonus points, hoping the rain would come, but he was forced to pit running low on fuel.

After the rain delay there were only 50 laps to go and Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch lead to field to the green. The crew chief were looking to the sky as more bad weather was threatening.

Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin got together after the restart causing Hamlin’s left rear tire to go flat.

Jeff Burton was showing the strength of the Earnhardt Childress engines with 42 laps to go looking like Burton had the car to beat.  Unfortunately for Burton the handling went away in the closing laps losing the battle with Harvick for second place. The RCR cars were strong all day putting all three cars in the top ten.

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