Harvick Ends Busch Season With a Victory

Kevin Harvick closed out a disappointing season in the NASCAR Busch Series by winning the final event of the year Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Harvick, the 2001 Busch series champion, moved to the front of the Ford 300 and had to hold off Jamie McMurray on several late restarts to clinch his second victory of the year.

Martin Truex Jr. clinched the series title last week at Darlington Raceway but didn’t get to enjoy the official championship ceremony until after he finished eighth at Homestead. He was presented with the trophy and celebrated with car owners Teresa Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

A series of cautions bunched the field up a handful of times, giving McMurray a chance to get a jump on Harvick and pass him.

But he never could, and Harvick got a great start on the final restart with two laps to go and pulled away in his Chevrolet to win by 0.218 seconds.

“Our stuff has been off this year. We’ve had good cars, but we’ve been off,� said Harvick, who won at Las Vegas in March. “It’s good to be back in Victory Lane.�

Harvick has struggled in both the Busch and Nextel Cup series this season, and hasn’t won a Cup race since August 2003. He was also shut out of the 10-race championship hunt.

McMurray, on the other hand, has won the last two races, and has already locked up 11th place in the Cup series and the $1-million bonus that goes with it.

He said he had only one real opportunity to pass Harvick and go for his third consecutive Busch series win.

“With 20 laps to go, I was able to get up on Kevin and get him loose,� Harvick said. “And he couldn’t get into the corner like he needed to, and I really thought I had him passed. But I got in there too hard, and the front end started chattering, and I had to back off.�

Rookie Kyle Busch was third, ending his season tied with Greg Biffle for the series rookie record of five wins in a season. He had hoped to give car owner Rick Hendrick a sixth victory, especially with Hendrick attending a race for the first time since the Oct. 24 plane crash that killed 10 family members and employees.

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After 27 years of trying, Rip Williams of Yorba Linda can finally call himself a sprint car champion.

Thanks to points earned in preliminary action, Williams was able to clinch the Valvoline USAC/CRA Championship for himself and car owner Sharon Jory just by taking the green flag for the Jack Kindoll Classic at Perris Auto Speedway.

Williams began his sprint car career in 1978, earning CRA rookie of the year honors in the process. Since then, he has compiled nearly 100 sprint car wins, but had never won a series driving title.

Damion Gardner of Concord was the only driver with a mathematical chance of catching Williams. In time trials, Gardner was only a tick of the clock off his 2-year-old track record and was the fastest of the 41 cars that qualified. With championship points up for grabs, Williams countered by posting the second fastest lap.

Ironically, neither driver was able to transfer directly to the 50-lap feature from their heat race. Sharing the front row for the start of the B-Main, which included seven of the top eight fastest qualifiers, Gardner edged Williams for the win but could not prevent Williams from clinching the championship.

Bobby Cody of Costa Mesa took the wildest ride of the night after he touched wheels with Indiana’s Jon Stanbrough while battling for second place on the fifth lap of the finale. Although he flipped nearly half the length of the front straightaway, Cody was not injured.

-- Robert Mayson