Kevin Harvick won the Nationwide Series Degree V12 300 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He scored his first series victory in eight races at AMS. Harvick became the 14th different race winner in 18 series races at Atlanta. He scored his 34th career series victory in 231 career races, ranking second all time behind Mark Martin, who has scored 48 series wins in 231 races. It was Harvick’s second victory in 2009. He also won at first Bristol.
Harvick led six times for 131 laps, including the final two. He led the most laps in the race. He had led just five laps in his previous seven races at Atlanta. Harvick became the seventh series race winner with multiple wins in 2009.
Kyle Busch leads all series drivers with six victories in 2009. Six other drivers have scored multiple wins in 2009: Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards each have three, and David Ragan, Greg Biffle and Harvick have two. Five other drivers have scored one each.
This was the fifth Kevin Harvick Inc. victory and second in 2009.
Only five cars finished on the lead lap. This was the fewest cars on the lead lap since there were five at Lowe’s in October 2006.
This marked the 11th victory for Chevrolet at Atlanta. Ford has seven. They remain the only manufacturers to win series races at Atlanta.
Kyle Busch (finished second) scored his ninth second-place finish in 2009. Busch has scored 15 finishes of first or second in 2009. He has led in 24 of the 26 races in 2009. Busch has a 221-point lead over second-place Edwards.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (third) posted his best series finish in seven races this season.
Brad Keselowski (fourth) scored his eighth straight top-10 finish, extending a streak that began at Gateway. Keselowski has been running at the finish in his past 58 series races, the longest current streak. His last DNF came because of an an accident at Las Vegas in March 2008, when he finished 23rd.
Jeff Burton (fifth) scored his fourth straight top-5 finish at Atlanta.
Jason Leffler (20th) has finished outside the top-15 in just four of the 26 races this season.
Michael Annett (14th) was the highest finishing rookie of the year contender.
The top 10 consisted of five Chevrolets, three Fords and two Toyotas.
(ESPN.com)(9-7-2009)
