HAMPTON, Ga. -- Even before Clint Bowyer's spinning car came to a stop in front of the main grandstand, Kevin Harvick knew his chances of winning Sunday night's Pep Boys 500 had evaporated. While crew chief Gil Martin showed obvious disappointment on the pit box when the caution flag flew with 16 laps remaining, Harvick's frustration was much less evident.

Even though Harvick won the race off pit road and had the option of choosing the inside or outside line on the restart, he knew only a mistake from Kasey Kahne would keep the No. 29 Chevrolet in front during the closing laps. And even though Harvick got a great jump when the green dropped, Kahne roared past Harvick on the backstretch like he was shot out of a cannon, leaving Harvick to finish second, 1.766 seconds behind.

“

My car was good halfway through the run to the end of the runs. ... That didn't pay off for us in the end.

”

-- KEVIN HARVICK

"I knew I wasn't going to catch him once he got by," Harvick admitted. "He went by me like he was making qualifying laps. He did that three or four times during the night. So I knew I was in trouble.

"[But] we didn't give up. We went as hard as we could and came up one short."

Despite leading six times for 66 laps, Harvick had to console himself with a second-place finish -- his first top-five run since the series was here in March. That's an indication of how frustrating Harvick's 2009 season has been to this point.

"I knew we were in trouble there at the end because it took our car 15 or 20 laps to get going," Harvick said. "But hey, that's a long ways from where we've been. We led a bunch of laps [Sunday night], something we haven't been able to do in a while."

In fact, when Harvick passed Denny Hamlin for the lead on Lap 168, it was the first time he had led a Cup Series race since Las Vegas, where he ran up front for nine laps.

Coming off a dominating victory in the Nationwide Series race Friday night, Harvick rolled off 18th but steadily threaded his way through the field during the first 125 laps. But with a long green-flag run following a caution for debris on Lap 132, Harvick's car came to life and he quickly moved into contention. After passing Hamlin, he dueled with Brian Vickers during a series of green-flag stops.

An incident involving Joey Logano brought out the caution on Lap 270, putting Harvick behind Kahne and Juan Montoya following the restart. But as they faded, Harvick's car became stronger and he was able to chase down Montoya for the lead, making the pass on Lap 305. And he was building his advantage over the field when his teammate lost control coming out of Turn 4.

"My car was good halfway through the run to the end of the runs," Harvick said. "I would give up five, six, seven spots at the beginning of the run. That didn't pay off for us in the end."

Four days ago, Richard Childress Racing announced a reorganization of its competition department. But in Harvick's opinion, he's been competitive for the past couple of months -- even if the results haven't shown it.

"Our cars have run fairly well for the last seven, eight weeks," Harvick said. "We just wind up wrecked or something stupid happening for the last little while. Seems like everything that's been happening has just kind of piled on.

"You know, any kind of momentum is good. In a good direction is good for us. It lets us know that we do remember how to race, overcome a lot of things and hopefully keep it going."

Harvick said slick conditions made for an interesting evening.

"It was basically like driving on ice," he said. "The cars were hard to drive. But the good thing about this place is you can move from the top to bottom to the middle and find yourself somewhere to run. It's a fun race track. It's a full night's work, to say the least. But still a fun race track to race on."

Harvick still hasn't won a Cup race since the 2007 Daytona 500, but Sunday night's effort gives him -- and the team -- reason to think he can snap that winless streak sometime soon.

"I'm happy," Harvick said. "Obviously, you want to go out and win. But from where we've been this year, I think [Sunday night] feels like a win. We'll just take this momentum and hopefully keep it going."