Harvick wins Busch at New Hampshire

Harvick started from pole position and despite losing the lead at various stages of the race, he was clearly the class of the field leading 166 out of the 200 laps, en route to his second Busch Series victory of the season and the 28th of his career.

With five laps to go his front row partner Carl Edwards put his Ford right behind the rear bumper of the No. 21 RCR Chevrolet, but then simply ran out of laps to make the battle for victory a bit tougher for Harvick.

"I could see him coming, just like old times last year," Harvick said. "We were kind of geared up for the short run today and just got a little bit too tight there at the end and just kind of had to hold with what we had to the very end. It almost cost us the race."

Edwards tried a late desperate dive on the inside of Harvick on the last lap, almost making contact with him, but he finally had to concede and settle for second.

"It was a lot of fun," Edwards said. "We got there like five to go and I saw everybody standing up [in the grandstands] with 3 to go. The last lap I drove it down in turn 3 as hard as I could, trying to see if I could get next to him and then I realized I was going to slide up.

"I thought maybe I'll just tap him a little bit and this will all work out, but ended up going behind him and lost a little bit of momentum. Kevin is an awesome racer so it's fun to race with him."

Matt Kenseth finished third despite emerging as the leader from the last caution where the leaders pitted for fuel and tyres. He lost the lead to Harvick as the green flag waved for the last time, and was then overtaken by Edwards with 21 laps to go.

Tony Stewart was fourth driving the No. 33 entry for Kevin Harvick Inc ahead of his Nextel Cup teammate Denny Hamlin. The Joe Gibbs driver looked a contender for victory early on, overtaking Harvick for the lead on lap 80, but then losing contact with the top runners in the closing stages.

Juan Pablo Montoya was probably enjoying his best oval showing of his Busch season thus fur, running in the top ten all the way until being tapped from behind by Clint Bowyer in turn two with 36 laps to go while fighting for sixth place.

"I just got hit by Clint, I think, he just spun me, for no reason. Didn't see the point there," Montoya said. "It's a disappointing day. We've been competitive in the last few races. We had a great car and an idiot like that just destroys our race. But that's racing."

While Montoya had to retire due to the damage on his car after hitting the wall as a consequence from the incident, Bowyer went on to finish sixth. The RCR driver felt Montoya just didn't give him room on the inside while fighting for position, although not many agreed with his view.

"I was under him and there he comes back across. I tried not to hit him but it was too late by then. You know it's unfortunate because he was having such a good run," Bowyer said.

The race was not a very eventful one with six caution flags coming out for 35 laps. The biggest crash of the race happened on lap 44 when Australian Marcos Ambrose got spun out of turn 4. The wreckage forced the race to be red flagged for a while as the rear of Ambrose's Ford got stuck on the wrecked hood of JJ Yeley's car.

Carl Edwards has once again increased his lead in the driver standings and now holds an 809 points advantage over David Reutimann. Kevin Harvick has bounced back after missing three races, moving up from fifth to third in the points, 868 behind Edwards.

Pos  Driver                  Make        Laps
 1.  Kevin Harvick           Chevrolet    200
 2.  Carl Edwards            Ford         200
 3.  Matt Kenseth            Ford         200
 4.  Tony Stewart            Chevrolet    200
 5.  Denny Hamlin            Chevrolet    200
 6.  Clint Bowyer            Chevrolet    200
 7.  Greg Biffle             Ford         200
 8.  David Reutimann         Toyota       200
 9.  Reed Sorenson           Dodge        200
10.  Casey Mears             Chevrolet    200
11.  Scott Wimmer            Chevrolet    200
12.  Jason Leffler           Toyota       200
13.  Mike Bliss              Dodge        200
14.  Scott Riggs             Dodge        200
15.  Steve Wallace           Dodge        200
16.  Ward Burton             Ford         200
17.  Todd Kluever            Ford         200
18.  David Ragan             Ford         200
19.  David Gilliland         Ford         200
20.  Bobby Hamilton Jr       Ford         199
21.  Kevin Conway            Chevrolet    199
22.  Danny O'Quinn Jr        Ford         199
23.  Shane Huffman           Chevrolet    199
24.  Kelly Bires             Ford         198
25.  Stephen Leicht          Ford         198
26.  Jason Keller            Chevrolet    197
27.  Stanton Barrett         Chevrolet    196
28.  Mike Wallace            Chevrolet    194
29.  Bobby Labonte           Chevrolet    192
30.  Marcos Ambrose          Ford         191
31.  Brent Sherman           Chevrolet    190
32.  Kyle Krisiloff          Ford         189
33.  Bobby Santos            Toyota       183
34.  Juan Montoya            Dodge        164
35.  Dave Blaney             Toyota       119
36.  J.J. Yeley              Chevrolet     81
37.  Eric McClure            Chevrolet     80
38.  Mike Harmon             Chevrolet     62
39.  Robert Richardson, II   Chevrolet     58
40.  Danny Efland            Chevrolet     27
41.  Eddie MacDonald         Chevrolet     24
42.  Morgan Shepherd         Dodge         13
43.  Randy MacDonald         Dodge         12