Harvick strategy game earns first Sonoma win

Kevin Harvick went back to school Saturday afternoon at Sonoma Raceway by running (and winning) the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race.

The extra laps paid off Sunday afternoon.

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Harvick followed up his Saturday performance by winning the Toyota Save / Mart 350 at Sonoma for the first time in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. The No. 4 team played the strategy game, having Harvick pit for the final time with 40 laps to go. He then picked off drivers as they pitted in addition to making his own gains on the leaders.

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Taking the lead from Brad Keselowski, who had yet to make his final stop with 22 laps to go, Harvick nursed an eight-second lead to the victory. Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Clint Bowyer finished second.

"It's been a lot of work," Harvick said of the organization's switch to Ford. "A lot of the guys have put in a lot of hours, and it's paying off. I feel like we have a lot of room to grow and for us, it's been OK, we've been competitive, we just haven't got to Victory Lane."

Harvick's last win was at Kansas Speedway last October.

"Felt like we had a couple opportunities to get there, just came up a lite bit short," said Harvick, who led the race's second-most laps (24). "This is worth the wait. To come to Sonoma for so many years and to win yesterday coming back to the K&N Series and coming back here today. I guess we'll have to do that again because it worked out pretty good."

The victory was Harvick's first in 17 tries at Sonoma and his first this season. It is the 36th of Harvick's career. There are also now just three tracks on the Cup Series schedule where Harvick has not won: Texas, Pocono and Kentucky.

Bowyer finished second with Keselowski nipping Denny Hamlin for third on the last lap. Kyle Busch rounded out the top five. 

"You get there back in traffic and you're so much faster than them you have to check up to save a mistake," Bowyer said. "You run over them and you don't mean to; you get frustrated and get a little bit farther behind and a little bit farther behind. I saw [Kyle Larson] check up and I get into him and I was thinking, 'Well, we'll both survive this.'

"And then all of a sudden [AJ Allmendinger] was coming through him and I smoked him and hurt the left front. We were fast all weekend. With clean air and a long run, that's always my strong suit. We got the long run, we just had to start dead last to get it."

The Toyota Save / Mart 350 featured Sonoma-record 13 lead changes among 10 drivers (also a new Sonoma record) and six cautions.