Everyone is playing 'Catch Kevin Harvick'

But as strong as his Chevrolet has been, the 39-year-old says there is always room for improvement.

“I’ll probably critique today more than the days we ran bad,” Harvick said after earning his seventh career win at the 1-mile track. “There are a lot of things that we could do better, little areas that we can work on. We’ll have notes upon notes.

“But I won’t approach the post-race report any different than I will a race we run 20th. We’ll probably have more information … on things we could or couldn’t do on a day we win.”

Running 20th doesn’t seem likely at this point for Harvick, crew chief Rodney Childers and the No. 4 team. In his last 21 starts, Harvick has finished outside the top 30 only once and he has finished outside the top 15 only twice in that time.

In the meantime there are others that have run well — but not nearly as consistently.

Since the start of the ’14 season, no one has more wins than Harvick (7) and only Jeff Gordon has as many second-place finishes (each has eight).

Only Joey Logano has as many top-fives (18).

Harvick has nearly twice as many poles during that time and his laps led total (currently at 2,619) is more than 1,000 beyond the next driver.

While the NASCAR world is looking for new ways to describe the team’s dominating performances, Harvick is trying to keep the season in perspective.

“Winning is something that ultimately makes the confidence level in myself, Rodney and everybody on this team know that you can make things happen in many different types of situations,” he said. “I think as you go to the next race, you go to California, it’s nothing like what we’ve done here, nothing really like what we did at (Las Vegas). You just have to forget about what you did.”

Statistically, Auto Club Speedway, site of this weekend’s Auto Club 400, hasn’t been one of Harvick’s best tracks. He has won at the 2-mile facility (in 2011), but his average finish is worse at only two other venues still on the schedule.

He finished 36th, two laps down, last year after suffering multiple tire issues.

Sunday’s victory marked the third time in his career that Harvick had posted back-to-back wins in the Sprint Cup Series, and the second time in the last six races.

His performances haven’t gone unnoticed, with several fellow competitors mentioning the team’s show of strength.

“We’ve got to keep working hard to catch up to Kevin,” Hendrick Motorsports driver Kasey Kahne, fourth at PIR said. ” Kevin drives a great race and they have a lot of speed.”

“We just have to find some more speed,” said former series champ Brad Keselowski, sixth on Sunday. “That is the common theme — to keep up with the 4 car (of Harvick).”

Jamie McMurray (Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates) drew comparisons to others that enjoyed notable stretches of success such as four-time champion Jeff Gordon, who won 10 or more races for a three-year stretch, including 13 in ’98.

“It was incredible,” McMurray said of Gordon’s dominance.

“I remember when the 4 car unloaded at the Charlotte test (in December of ’13), first lap on the track he was literally the fastest car. For a year it’s been that way.”

Even Harvick seems somewhat taken aback by just how well his team has performed each week.

“It’s almost scary,” he said.

“You don’t want to talk about it too much because you want to keep it going.”

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