The best car in the Sam’s Town 300 finally got to the front—just in time to win the race.
Frustrated by slow stops on pit road and a variety of different tire strategies on the part of his competitors, Harvick passed Denny Hamlin for the lead with 25 laps left in Saturday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and pulled away to beat Hamlin by 1.361 seconds.
The victory was Harvick’s first of the season and the 35th of his career, second best all-time in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series.
Carl Edwards ran third, polesitter Brad Keselowski fourth and Brian Vickers fifth. Trevor Bayne, Justin Allgaier, Paul Menard, Greg Biffle and Steve Wallace completed the top 10.
“The car was really fast,” said Harvick, who led a race-high 82 laps, most of them early in the race before getting burned by the lackluster work in the pits. “We’ve definitely got some work to do on pit road, but, fortunately, the car was fast enough. NASCAR
FIN CAR DRIVER MAKE 1 33 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 2 20 Denny Hamlin Toyota 3 60 Carl Edwards Ford 4 22 Brad Keselowski Dodge 5 32 Brian Vickers Toyota 6 99 Trevor Bayne Toyota 7 12 Justin Allgaier Dodge 8 98 Paul Menard Ford 9 27 Greg Biffle Ford 10 66 Steve Wallace Toyota 11 1 Mike Wallace Chevrolet 12 38 Jason Leffler Toyota 13 62 Brendan Gaughan Toyota 14 9 Scott Riggs Ford 15 21 John Wes Townley Chevrolet 16 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 17 43 Scott Lagasse Jr. Ford 18 87 Joe Nemechek Chevrolet 19 61 Josh Wise Ford 20 70 Shelby Howard Chevrolet 21 24 Eric McClure Ford 22 34 Tony Raines Chevrolet 23 107 Danny Efland Chevrolet 24 31 Stanton Barrett Chevrolet 25 5 Willie Allen Chevrolet 26 23 Robert Richardson Jr. Chevrolet 27 40 Mike Bliss Chevrolet 28 16 Colin Braun * Ford 29 1 James Buescher * Chevrolet 30 6 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. * Ford 31 11 Brian Scott * Toyota 32 26 Brian Keselowski Dodge 33 15 Michael Annett Toyota 34 28 Kenny Wallace Chevrolet 35 42 Parker Kligerman * Dodge 36 7 Danica Patrick Chevrolet 37 156 Kevin Lepage Toyota 38 90 Danny O'Quinn Jr. Chevrolet 39 81 Michael McDowell Dodge 40 10 Chad Blount Toyota 41 49 Mark Green Chevrolet 42 88 Kelly Bires Chevrolet 43 96 Dennis Setzer Dodge
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