Harvick snatches Daytona 500 win

"Just the Daytona 500, it's hard to believe," Harvick said after sweeping the weekend at Daytona, becoming the fourth driver in history to do so.

"I knew I was going to be the bad guy there at the end with Mark leading. But we just held the pedal down and hoped for the best.

"It's just hard to put into words. I mean, we got ourselves in a little bit of trouble there with a hole in the nose and got really hot and had to drop out of the draft there with about 20 to go. Luckily we got a caution and were able to come back in and fix the front of the car."

In front of a sell-out grandstand crowd of 168,000, the race started with pole-sitter David Gilliland heading the pack for the first 18 laps before Boris Said spun in the back stretch, bringing out the first caution.

As the pits opened for the first time, everybody went for fuel and tyres and it was Kurt Busch who emerged ahead after the first round of stops.

The 2004 Nextel Cup champion showed how strong his car was by leading the next 39 laps until Tony Stewart came out of his draft to take the lead for the next 32.

The pair looked from then on like the men to beat in the afternoon, only giving up the lead during the second round of pitstops, which took place under green between laps 60 and 65.

After the third round of stops, which came under caution on lap 80 when Kyle Petty hit the wall at Turn 2, Harvick found himself briefly in the lead, having made his way from 34th on the grid.

At the same time, Ray Evernham's Scott Riggs was also forced to take his car to the garage for lenghty repairs after hitting transmission problems.

During the pitstop, Gilliland had a coming together with Robby Gordon who got spun by the Yates driver when he was coming in for his pitstop. He had to spin his car around in the pitlane to get serviced and rejoin the race at the back of the field.

Gillliland had to pit again for repairs to the right front of his No. 38 Ford.

Stewart had to pit a second time to check his car, after he ran over debris from Petty's contact with the wall. He had to restart the race from the back of the field and apparently had trouble with the handling of his car in the traffic, almost coming together with Juan Pablo Montoya who was having a difficult race with an understeering car.

Until then, at the front everybody looked comfortable, with Kurt Busch setting the pace as the field drafted in single line, with Kyle Busch, Ryan Newman, Jeff Burton and Denny Hamlin part of that front group, which for a while looked capable of breaking away from the pack.

But as Stewart was finally able to get his car dialed out after his fourth pitstop, he quickly moved up the pack catching up again with Kurt Busch as the race approached its last quarter.

Stewart didn't hesitate to overtake the Busch brothers as he approached them, taking second from Kyle and then claiming the lead from Kurt with 50 laps to go.

However, with 46 laps to the end, Stewart got loose coming out of Turn 4, and as he regained control, Kurt Busch just tapped the back of his Chevrolet, making him lose control of the Home Depot machine, which then hit the wall, taking Busch's Dodge with him.

Both men were uninjured, and Busch was even able to take his car to the pits, where his team tried to repair it.

With the most dominating cars of the afternoon out of contention, the race changed completely as most drivers took chances to try to get up front. Four further cautions came out in the last 50 laps of the race, with four multi-car incidents taking place in the middle of the pack.

The first major incident was ignited when defending Nextel Cup and Daytona 500 champion Jimmie Johnson got loose coming out of Turn 2. David Reutimann, Jeff Green, Tony Raines and Hamlin were all involved in the crash.

Both the No. 48 Lowes Chevrolet of Johnson and the No. 00 Dominos Pizza Toyota of Reutimann were damaged beyond repair.

Shortly after, it was Newman who had to take his car behind the wall with an engine problem, which effectively ruined Penske's hopes of figthing for victory after his cars led a race-high 96 laps.

With 13 laps to go, another five cars were part of an incident on the front stretch. Dave Blaney and Ken Schrader made heavy contact with the wall, while Mike Wallace, Clint Bowyer and Carl Edwards were also involved, although the three were able to rejoin the race without major damage to their cars.

As the race approached its end, a further incident took place on the back stretch with only ten laps remaining.

Jamie McMurray and Dale Earnhardt Jr made contact and saw the end of their races just three laps from the chequered flag.

The sixth caution then came out to set the final sprint of the afternoon. The race was briefly red-flagged before being restarted for the final two laps.

Mark Martin, in his first race for Ginn Racing and driving a Chevrolet after nearly two decades of driving Jack Roush's Fords, found himself in the lead of the Daytona 500 and clearly with one of the best shots he ever had at winning the race.

However, as the white flag waved, Harvick got a great run at Martin on the outside, being pushed by Matt Kenseth. The winner from Saturday's Busch Series race was able to keep the momentum in the last mile of the race to just edge Martin for victory in the race's closest finish since 1993.

Behind them, chaos was caused when Kyle Busch spun, causing a major wreck which involved Kenseth and Bowyer, among several drivers.

The crash provided a dramatic finish to what started as a very calm race and developed into a very eventful one, as more drivers saw a chance to win the most important race in the NASCAR calendar.

None of the drivers were injured in the last-lap incident, which also involved Juan Pablo Montoya.

The Colombian had a quiet afternoon in the middle of the pack after having transmission problems in his penultimate pitstop. He went a lap down but despite that was able to finish the race on the lead lap.

Daytona 500 Result:

Pos  Driver              Make        Laps
 1.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet   202
 2.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet   202
 3.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet   202
 4.  Mike Wallace        Chevrolet   202
 5.  David Ragan         Ford        202
 6.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge       202
 7.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge       202
 8.  David Gilliland     Ford        202
 9.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet   202
10.  David Stremme       Dodge       202
11.  JJ Yeley            Chevrolet   202
12.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet   202
13.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge       202
14.  Robby Gordon        Ford        202
15.  Johnny Sauter       Chevrolet   202
16.  Sterling Marlin     Chevrolet   202
17.  Boris Said          Ford        202
18.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet   202
19.  Juan Montoya        Dodge       202
20.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge       202
21.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet   202
22.  Carl Edwards        Ford        202
23.  Dale Jarrett        Toyota      202
24.  Kyle Busch          Chevrolet   202
25.  Greg Biffle         Ford        202
26.  Ricky Rudd          Ford        202
27.  Matt Kenseth        Ford        202
28.  Denny Hamlin        Chevrolet   201
29.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet   201
30.  Michael Waltrip     Toyota      200
31.  Jamie McMurray      Ford        196
32.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet   196
33.  Tony Raines         Chevrolet   195
34.  Dave Blaney         Toyota      187
35.  Ken Schrader        Ford        186
36.  Jeff Green          Chevrolet   181
37.  Scott Riggs         Dodge       179
38.  Ryan Newman         Dodge       176
39.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet   174
40.  David Reutimann     Toyota      174
41.  Kurt Busch          Dodge       166
42.  Kyle Petty          Dodge       160
43.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet   153