Harvick gets first win at Talladega

Kevin Harvick snapped a 115-race winless streak on Sunday as he passed Jamie McMurray just before crossing the finish line to win the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway. Harvick said good timing helped him get past McMurray at the end.

“Yeah, well, obviously we were tight on fuel,” Harvick said.

“We were able to save enough gas to get where we needed to be for all the green-white-checkers. Once we kind of got past that window, it was just all about timing, and the timing worked out exactly how we wanted it to work. We knew coming in the tri-oval we needed to be second, and I moved to the left, and that was it.”

Richard Childress Racing and Harvick lost their sponsorship with Shell, as they decided to go with Penske Racing in 2011. Harvick has no hard feelings; he knows that it is just part of the business.

“I don’t have any ill will toward anybody in particular,” Harvick said. “I don’t particularly agree with the way the whole situation was handled, but this particular situation, I’m the driver and it’s not anything new to the sport. There are sponsors that come and go, and things change.

“In this particular situation there was a lot of business-to-business that took place. It’s not anything new, and being an owner, you understand that there are a lot of decisions that take place. Other than that, it is what it is and you roll on.”

For Richard Childress Racing, Sunday’s win was the team’s first since October 2008.

Childress said he believes Sunday’s win will help when it comes to finding a new sponsor. “This is a great win for Kevin and myself,” he said. “You know, we’ve had good cars. You know, I think we won the Daytona 500 or 499 or whatever it was, and the 510, we just didn’t win the Daytona 520. We’ve been right there, had a good shot at California, and we got the cars running good. I really feel good about everything the 29 [Harvick] team has got going right now. We want to win that championship.”

Harvick’s last win was in 2007 when he won the Daytona 500. Sunday was Harvick’s first win at Talladega Superspeedway.

This season, Harvick had five top 10 finishes coming into Sunday’s race. Harvick almost won the Daytona 500 earlier in the season, but a green-white-checker rule cost him the victory. On Sunday that rule helped Harvick.

“Yeah, I remember Gil [Martin] being down in the dumps and telling Mike Helton, ‘that rule sucks,’” Harvick said.

“Mike patted him on the back, and he said, ‘it will all come full circle.’ Today it’s all worked itself out, and we were able to finish it off.”

Sunday’s race had Talladega Superspeedway records with 88 lead changes and 29 different leaders. Harvick said were many factors contributed to record numbers.

“I think it is a combination of a lot of things,” he said.

“I think a lot of effort went into the spoiler, restrictor plate size and making sure that the racing was what it needed to be. I think that they are all contributing factors in some way.”

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