Kevin Harvick leaves trucks field in dust for Atlanta victory

By Nate Ryan, USA TODAY

HAMPTON, Ga. — Kevin Harvick increased his commitment to the Camping World Truck Series for two reasons: To keep building more chassis and to keep beating Kyle Busch.By both standards, Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway was a successful haul for the No. 2 Silverado driver.

Harvick led a race-high 100 of 130 laps and fended off Busch by 1.308 seconds to win the E-Z-Go 200 before an estimated crowd of 25,000 for his seventh career victory on the truck circuit.

It’s the third straight victory for Harvick, who has supplanted Busch as the Sprint Cup star who parachutes into the truck series as a perennial favorite.

In his past nine starts dating to Phoenix International Raceway in November 2008, Harvick has five wins and top-five finishes in the other four starts. In three of those victories by Harvick, Busch (who won seven of 15 starts last year) has been the runner-up.

“A lot of reason we race trucks is to make sure Kyle Busch doesn’t win all those races,” Harvick said. “That’s the honest to God truth. Sometimes you have to protect your turf. He was the only one racing, and it was important for us and Chevrolet to score as many points as we could. We had to protect from him winning seven or eight races a year.

“He’s going to win his fair share still. He’s a good driver.”

With help from Busch and veterans such as Todd Bodine, Johnny Benson and Mike Skinner, Toyota has won four consecutive manufacturer championships.

Harvick, who ran three truck races in 2008, said he’s increased his schedule to seven or eight race this season in order to help stem Busch’s chances of winning.

The winning streak also serves a good sales pitch for Kevin Harvick Inc., which built nearly all of the 16 Chevrolets in Sunday’s 36-truck field.

“We probably have a third of the field on the racetrack,” said Harvick, who drives in Cup for Richard Childress Racing. “We have a lot of customers we hang bodies for, and that’s what keeps our teams going.”

business helped cushion the blow from teammate Ron Hornaday Jr.’s crash on the 22nd lap Sunday. Hornaday, who won the pole but finished 34th to fall to 28th in points, apparently had a tire blow after suffering damage in a first-lap brush with Busch.

“The smoking (from Hornaday’s truck) had completely gone away, but it must have broke those cords down enough to blow the tire out,” said Harvick, who had encouraged Hornaday to keep his No. 33 out of the pits on the 1.54-mile oval. “Those guys are in a hole, but we’ll keep giving them good trucks. They’ve had two bad days, but they’ve had a lot of good days, too. They just are in a little bit of a slump.”

Times are good, though, for Kyle Busch Motorsports, a start-up team formed during the offseason. Besides Busch’s second-place finish, the team scored a 13th with Tayler Malsam.

KBM’s Tundras aren’t that far behind KHI, according to Busch, whose No. 18 Toyota finished ahead of former Billy Ballew Motorsports teammate Aric Almirola, Steve Wallace (making his first truck start), Todd Bodine and five-time Supercross champion Ricky Carmichael.

“We just need to work in the aero department a little bit and get some mechanical grip,” said Busch, whose team hired competition director Rick Ren away from KHI late last year. “We just don’t quite have as much downforce as the Chevrolets. Rick knows a lot about what the Chevrolets have for numbers, and we’re just not there yet with the Toyota stuff. We’ll get it there hopefully, and if not, then we’ll try to outrace them any way we can.”

Sixty-year-old Geoff Bodine made his first start in the truck series since 2004, giving props to the gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic bobsled program.

But his Bo-Dyn Bobsled Dodge wasn’t nearly as successful as those sleds he helped design for the Vancouver Games. Bodine went out after 106 laps with a gear problem and finished 26th.