Kevin Harvick skids to a stop after missing his pit stall early in Sunday's EA Sports 500. Credit: Autostock

Second place almost like a victory for Harvick

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- It's been a long, frustrating season for Kevin Harvick, who has seen his Chevrolet fail to run up front for most of the year.

Harvick ran in the top 10 for half of the races in 2003, but he's seen that number drop to just over a third in 2004.

Restrictor-plate season is in the books for 2004, and as disappointed as Harvick was for not making the Chase for the Nextel Cup, it wasn't because of his performances at Daytona and Talladega.

Kevin Harvick

The plate tracks have long been the strength of Richard Childress Racing and Harvick was exceptional on the superspeedways this season.

Harvick was second in the EA Sports 500, his first top-five finish since the spring Talladega event, giving him four top-fives in 2004. Three of those came on restrictor-plate tracks.

Harvick knows this, and he knows the team has to get better on the 1.5-mile tracks, which make up four of the last seven races.

"It gives us confidence going into the last seven races," Harvick said of the runner-up finish. "But it also doesn't need to send false signals that everything is OK, because everything is not OK.

"Our downforce is off. Our engines are off. We have got to make sure we keep getting better."

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Harvick thought he had a car to beat Dale Earnhardt Jr., but he said that non-RCR cars refused to help him much.

"It pisses me off, to tell you the truth," Harvick said. "I am sitting back there running 15th and there are 14 cars in front of me that won't budge."

Harvick did get help from teammates Robby Gordon and Jeff Burton, who also ran up front all day. Gordon finished ninth; Burton was 13th.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kevin Harvick

It was a good day for our team," Harvick said. Once we got all three lined up there, we passed 12 or 13 cars, and people realized they were going to have to go with us because we were lined up."

Ricky Rudd gave Dale Earnhardt Jr. the push late in the race to get by Harvick.

"Myself and Robby got up there and the No. 21 (Rudd) kind of blocked him and gave the No. 8 (Earnhardt) a shot to get up in there and he drove around us," said Harvick, who led with four laps to go. "Myself and Dale (Jarrett, who finished third) were back there watching (Earnhardt) win again."