Harvick goes winless, but overall 2008 a good year

What Kevin Harvick starts, he finishes. For the second consecutive year Harvick didn't have a DNF, one of only two drivers for which that can be said. It's the third time Harvick has completed a full season of running at the finish since NASCAR established the current 36-race schedule in 2003. In fact, he's failed to finish a race only five times in the past six years.

While he endured just his second winless season in eight years of Cup Series racing, 2008 did establish Harvick as a consistent championship-eligible driver. He made the Chase for the third consecutive year and matched his breakout year of 2006 with a fourth-place finish in the standings. Harvick finished the season with seven top-fives and 19 top-10s, the latter just one off his career mark.

Kevin Harvick's 12.4 average finish ranked third in the Cup Series in '08.

A string of nine consecutive top-10s was the highlight of Harvick's season. From the second Pocono race and into the Chase, Harvick had a run in 2008 matched only by Jimmie Johnson. The streak began with three top-fives in five races and later led a season-high 80 laps at Richmond to be considered a dark horse going into the Chase.

But despite seven top-10s during the Chase, Harvick never mustered a serious threat. His final points ranking following a runner-up finish at Homestead was his best since the first Texas race, when he was second in the standings.

Harvick finished on the lead lap 30 times in 2008, three more than in 2006 when he set career-highs with five wins, 15 top-fives and 895 laps led. In 2008, the 192 laps Harvick led were the third-lowest of his career, and only four times was he the race leader for more than one lap. He also enters 2009 on the longest winless streak of his career, a span of 71 races since winning the 2007 Daytona 500.

Consistency has made Harvick a Chase competitor, not necessarily a contender. In order to challenge for the Cup, Harvick needs to combine the productivity of 2008 with the dynamic of 2006.

LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway -- Harvick has always been good at Chicagoland, having won the first two races there and finishing fourth the previous two years. But he was scuffling heading to the Joliet, Ill. track in 2008, having not posted a top-10 finish in the past eight races, a span in which he dropped from fifth in the point standings to 13th, one spot below the Chase cutoff. He finished third and jumped four spots in the standings to ninth. Although he lost those positions in the next race -- the Brickyard tire debacle -- he didn't lose the momentum Chicagoland inspired. A fourth-place finish at Pocono a week later set forth a string of top-10s that kept him in good Chase standing.

AMP Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway -- Not only was it a turn for the worse for Harvick, it also brought out his worse when an unhappy "Happy" publicly lambasted Carl Edwards after the race for triggering a wreck that collected Harvick's car among many. The feud carried over the following week in the form of a physical confrontation. Harvick finished 20th at Talladega, his worst finish in the Chase.

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