Kevin Harvick clinched his second Busch Series championship at Charlotte. Credit: Autostock

No disappointments in Harvick's record year

Busch Series champion can tie all-time mark for victories

It's hard to pinpoint Kevin Harvick's low point of the season.

Maybe it was not winning a race until the eighth event of the season, or a mid-summer "dry" spell that kept him out of Victory Lane for nine consecutive races during which he led a combined total of eight laps. Included in that span was his worst finish of the season -- a 19th at Milwaukee, although it only happened because he spun while battling for the lead with winner Paul Menard in the closing laps.

Carl Edwards has four victories in 2006, but his accomplishments have been overshadowed. Credit: Autostock

Busch Series Standings before Homestead (35th of 35 races) Pos. Driver Behind 1. Kevin Harvick Leader 2. Carl Edwards -844 3. Clint Bowyer -940 4. Denny Hamlin -986 5. J.J. Yeley -1166 6. Paul Menard -1588 7. Kyle Busch -1612 8. Greg Biffle -1753 9. Johnny Sauter -1833 10. Reed Sorenson -1860 • Complete standings, click here FORD 300 •   Entry List •   2006 Standings •   2006 Loop Data •   This Week's Headlines •   Weekend TV Schedule •   Complete Coverage

Maybe it was not being able to lead the series standings wire-to-wire. After the season opener at Daytona, Harvick ranked fifth in points. Of course, that day wasn't all that bad. Harvick-owned cars finished 1-2 as Tony Stewart won the race and former driver Burney Lamar finished second.

But maybe it was last weekend, when Matt Kenseth kept the 2006 champion at bay on the race's final restart to win at Phoenix. It prevented him from potentially breaking Sam Ard's record for the most victories in a single season. Harvick can merely tie Ard's 10-win season of 1983 if he wins Saturday night's Ford 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (7 p.m. ET, TNT).

He wasn't even that upset about the lost chance at another record.

He was irked at the jump Kenseth got on the restart, saying after the race, "If it had been us, we would have been sitting on pit road [under penalty]."

Harvick still finished second, where he's finished six times this season. It's been that kind of year for the champion -- suffer the biggest mental disappointment perhaps of the season and still beat 41 other drivers.

He's had 23 top-fives this year and 31 top-10s. He hasn't finished worse than 20th. He's led laps in all but 15 races. And pretty much since they said go, his domination left everyone else racing for second place.

"I had hoped to come into Homestead with a chance at two championships," said Denny Hamlin, who sits fourth in both the Busch and Cup standings. "But Harvick never let up all season."

What's perhaps most impressive, Harvick has completed every lap of the season except for one.

In the Charlotte race last month, he finished ninth, one lap down in his own No. 33 Chevrolet. And of course, that's the race he clinched the championship.

That's all old news by now.

The focus isn't so much on the Busch Series as it is on Sunday's Cup race, where Harvick is looking to make up 90 points on leader Jimmie Johnson and leapfrog from third to become the first driver in history to win both titles in the same season.

GETTING AROUND MIAMI "Homestead is unique with the multi-grade banking and just the way you drive it. I always seem to be most happy right down on the bottom of the track because it's the flattest part. The tires are another big part of the way you drive it and how you use a lot of brake on a big track like it."  -- Clint Bowyer, No. 2 Chevrolet  2005 RACE STATS 2005 Winner: Ryan Newman  Time of Race: 2:24:41  Average Speed: 124.41 mph  Cautions: 9 for 34 laps  Margin of Victory: .137 sec  2005 FlashbackWatch Ryan Newman win the race and Martin Truex Jr. win the title Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

"We set goals at the beginning of the year, and our goals were to race for both championships and put ourselves in contention to do that toward the end of the year," said Harvick, who announced that he will not run the Busch Series full time in 2007.

"Obviously, the Busch year has been something that we might never get a chance to do again. However, to be able to accomplish both of those goals, knowing where we were last year at RCR, would be amazing."

Harvick was referring to RCR's Cup program more so that its Busch outfit. Prior to this season's title, RCR hadn't won a championship in anything since Harvick won the Busch Series in 2001. And before that, it was 1994 when Dale Earnhardt won his seventh Cup title.

But this year RCR placed two drivers in Nextel Cup's Chase and Harvick and Jeff Burton have combined to win six races in the Cup Series. Harvick, Burton and Clint Bowyer have combined to win 12 Busch races for RCR this season, including five of the last seven.

"As we went through Saturdays and things were going good, that momentum carries over to Sunday a little bit," said Harvick, who swept Busch and Cup races at Phoenix in April and at Richmond in September. "However, I really think that the Cup cars getting better made the Busch cars that much better, because a lot of the things we do bleed down to the Busch cars."

After the year Harvick has had, RCR might hope things carry over into Cup, too.

"We have made some really big strides at RCR this year," Harvick said, "and I think we are all just head over heels about our accomplishments so far this year."