Harvick wins Bristol Nationwide race

Harvick inherited the lead from Kyle Busch during a late caution and was untouchable from then on.

Since winning in November 2007 at Texas driving for Richard Childress Racing, Harvick had been win-less in the second-tier category. He is now the most successful driver in the series at Bristol with five wins to his name at the half-mile oval.

"We've worked hard and I've lost a lot of sleep at night trying to get this," said Harvick, who had already won for his team in the Truck Series in the past.

"What a feeling to build something from the very beginning and have won at every level. (Tony) Stewart and (Bobby) Labonte had won in the car before but what a feeling to win in our own stuff."

Kyle Busch effectively handed victory to Harvick after leading the majority of the race. The Joe Gibbs driver got penalised during the penultimate caution for a pitroad violation when a tyre got away from his crew during the last stop.

He dropped from first to 14th and in the last 50 laps he was able to recover to finish a disappointing sixth.

Behind Harvick the Roush Fenway Ford of Carl Edwards finished second, leading nearly a quarter of the distance. Early in the race he had a great battle with Kyle Busch but in the end he couldn't keep up either with him, nor with Harvick after losing his position to the eventual winner right before the last round of pitstops.

"I just drove as hard as I could," said Edwards, who now leads the series standings. "I wanted to win it bad but I just couldn't touch [Harvick].

"I did the best I could on the last restart and I had a little bit of a push and that was all I had. Those guys are in their day, they did a good job but it was a good points day for us."

Reigning champion Clint Bowyer finished third after running solidly all day, while Matt Kenseth was fourth as he replaced the recovering Greg Biffle. Fifth was Penske rookie Justin Allgaier, who excelled on his Bristol debut - finishing as the top Nationwide series regular in a race dominated by the Sprint Cup drivers.

"I think we had a really good race car," said Allgaier. "We just got caught in traffic there for a while and really couldn't get out of it and once we did the car was really good and we were able to get to the front. I'm surprised a little bit. We've never been here before. The team did a great job preparing the car, the pitstops were great all day so they made my job really easy."

Steven Wallace was seventh ahead of Scott Speed while Joey Logano and Jason Leffler rounded out the top-ten.

Polesitter Brendan Gaughan lost the lead to Carl Edwards in the early laps and could only finish 21st and three laps down, struggling with tyre and handling issues. Despite his poor finish he ranks fourth in the points, behind leader Edwards, race-winner Harvick and Kyle Busch.

Pos  Driver                Car        Laps
 1.  Kevin Harvick         Chevrolet  300
 2.  Carl Edwards          Ford       300
 3.  Clint Bowyer          Chevrolet  300
 4.  Matt Kenseth          Ford       300
 5.  Justin Allgaier       Dodge      300
 6.  Kyle Busch            Toyota     300
 7.  Steve Wallace         Chevrolet  300
 8.  Scott Speed           Toyota     300
 9.  Joey Logano           Toyota     300
10.  Jason Leffler         Toyota     300
11.  Paul Menard           Ford       300
12.  Brad Keselowski       Chevrolet  300
13.  Scott Lagasse Jr      Toyota     300
14.  Kenny Wallace         Chevrolet  300
15.  Burney Lamar          Toyota     300
16.  John Wes Townley      Ford       299
17.  David Green           Toyota     298
18.  Joe Nemechek          Chevrolet  298
19.  David Ragan           Ford       298
20.  Michael Annett        Toyota     297
21.  Brendan Gaughan       Chevrolet  297
22.  Scott Wimmer          Chevrolet  296
23.  Trevor Bayne          Chevrolet  296
24.  Brandon Whitt         Ford       295
25.  Casey Atwood          Chevrolet  295
26.  Eric McClure          Ford       294
27.  Marc Davis            Toyota     293
28.  Jason Keller          Ford       292
29.  Robert Richardson Jr  Chevrolet  289
30.  Kenny Hendrick        Dodge      288
31.  Michael McDowell      Toyota     283
32.  Tony Raines           Chevrolet  283
33.  Kevin Hamlin          Dodge      280
34.  Morgan Shepherd       Chevrolet  254
35.  Mike Bliss            Chevrolet  254
36.  Kevin Lepage          Dodge      96
37.  Danny O'Quinn Jr      Chevrolet  81
38.  Dennis Setzer         Dodge      55
39.  Andy Ponstein         Chevrolet  22
40.  Terry Cook            Chevrolet  20
41.  Johnny Chapman        Chevrolet  10
42.  Kelly Bires           Toyota     5
43.  Steve Grissom         Chevrolet  2