Harvick's dual role at Daytona ends in victory

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- There's a time to be a good teammate. And there's a time when it's every man for himself. Over the span of 10 minutes -- as a race that started Saturday evening stretched into early Sunday morning -- Kevin Harvick found himself playing both roles.

And because of that, Harvick was the winner of the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, a three-hour race that included a 90-minute rain delay, a 19-minute red flag, a green-white-checkered finish and a post-race fireworks show. It may have taken the Continental Congress less time in July of 1776 to debate the Declaration of Independence than it did for NASCAR to get through 415 miles of racing.

But, hey. There were no pothole delays this time around as Daytona's worn and weathered racing surface survived one final time -- as Harvick lobbied for a souvenir to take back to North Carolina.

"I don't care so much about the trophy," Harvick said. "I want some of the pavement from the start-finish line out there, so this is pretty cool."

It was that white stripe in the center of Daytona's famous tri-oval that was Harvick's ultimate goal twice in one night: once when he and teammate Clint Bowyer wanted so desperately to see a white flag flying but instead were greeted with yellow; and then again when Harvick found himself with the lead and 2.5 miles to go, but knowing Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon were poised to pounce on any mistake.

There wouldn't be a mistake on this night, as Harvick made all the right moves down the stretch. With three laps to go in regulation, Harvick gave Gordon a huge shove past Bowyer into the lead, only to get behind his teammate one lap later and blow by the helpless No. 24 on the backstretch.

"Coming to the white, I thought it was going to be [Bowyer] first and us second, and then the caution came out and we could see the white flag," Harvick said. "I was content about that. I knew those guys needed a good day, and I knew you never know what's going to happen on the last lap with people pushing and shoving from the back."

However, when Sam Hornish Jr.'s aggressive three-wide squeeze play between Kurt Busch and Elliott Sadler sent all three crashing, the Bowyer-Harvick gambit wound up backfiring in a way.

Instead of having a teammate nose-to-tail, Bowyer and Harvick were forced to start side-by-side. And Bowyer's car had older tires. When the green dropped, Harvick darted out in front while Gordon slipped past Bowyer for second.

At that point, Harvick realized he couldn't do anything to help Bowyer.

"No, it was every man for himself at that point," Harvick said. "Just for the fact with the double-file restarts and the way that it all shook out. You know the guys behind you are going to push you as hard as they can, so if I slow down to let him in or something like that, it's just going to give the other line some momentum.

"At that point you just hope that your line goes faster than the other line, and fortunately tonight we were in the right line on the bottom. And it wound up working out."

Kahne was able to pass Gordon, but when Harvick flashed across the start-finish line for the next-to-last time, it was a matter of making his No. 29 Chevy as wide as it could be out of the final corner.

"Yeah, our car handled really good," Harvick said. "That was the main thing. It handed really good through the corners. Tires at the end were key. I was able to maneuver where I need to, to make moves happen and handle the shoves without letting off the throttle getting in the corners."

At one point, Richard Childress' team appeared to be on its way to a possible 1-2-3 finish. But Jeff Burton pinballed his way to a fifth-place finish and Bowyer faded all the way back to 17th.

"We worked really well together tonight," Harvick said. "Everybody is getting along really well. I know we all have our moments where we get mad at each other, but I think we were all on the same page tonight and really working well together.

"I think it showed up on the racetrack with the results that were about to happen coming to the white flag, and we were fortunate to get into Victory Lane. But all the cars ran really well tonight, and from a team standpoint that's all you can really ask for."

Sometimes you take one for the team. Sometimes you take one as a team.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.