Kevin Harvick won the Sprint Cup Series Aarons 499 Sunday after surviving three attempts to finish the race for the first time in NASCAR history.

photo credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images

After pushing Jamie McMurray on the final restart, Harvick made a late pass for the win as they were coming to the finish line. Harvick won by .011 seconds, the eighth closest finish since NASCAR started using electronic scoring in 1993.

“I’ll tell you what, everything just played out perfect for us,” Harvick said.

The win was for the first at Talladega Superspeedway for Harvick in the series. In 19 races at Talladega, it’s Harvick’s eighth top-10 finish.

“Obviously we were tight on fuel. We were able to save enough gas to get where we needed to be for all the green-white checkereds,” Harvick said. “Once we kind of got past that window, it was just all about timing, and the timing worked out exactly how we wanted it to work out. We knew coming into the tri-oval we needed to be second, and he moved to the right and I moved to the left, and that was it.”

The win came just days after Shell announced the company would leave Richard Childress Racing to join Penske Racing next season. Harvick’s contract is also up after this season at RCR.

“This is a great win for Kevin and myself,” team owner Childress said. “You know, we’ve had good cars… We’ve been right there, had a good shot at California and we got the cars running good. I really feel good about everything the 29 team has got going right now. We want to win that championship.”

Harvick had to cut the victory celebration short, so he could jump in his Nationwide car. Harvick will start from the pole for the Aarons 312 immediately following the Cup race. Talladega fans get a special treat with the doubleheader.

Jamie McMurray won the last two restrictor plate races. He was going for three-in-a-row. A feat that hasn’t happened since Dale Earnhardt’s streak.

“I really thought that Kevin was going to go high,” McMurray said discussing the finish. “I felt like I was close enough to the yellow line that there was a lot more racetrack to the right, and it seemed like you could stall guys out more on the outside than you could the inside. And so I was really guarding against the outside, and when he went left, it did, it really loosens the car up. It’s hard to explain to you guys that aren’t in cars, but when there’s someone directly behind you and they pull their car out of line really fast, it’s like you pull a parachute in your car. It literally feels like you lose three or five miles an hour immediately, and when that happens, the car that’s doing the passing just has the momentum. Really once he got underneath me, all I was doing was side drafting and hoping I could stall him out and just get him back to the start-finish line.”

It’s his sixth top-10 finish in his 16 cup races at Talladega Superspeedway. McMurray also will race in the Nationwide Series today.

“I feel pretty good,” McMurray said. “I wish we could have run the race yesterday, but I’m certainly happy to run it today and not tomorrow. So it shouldn’t be that big a deal. Last week at Texas you just couldn’t put enough fuel in your system. It took like until Wednesday to get rehydrated. So it’ll be the same here. It’s a little bit hotter than what we had at Texas.”

McMurray’s teammate, Juan Pablo Montoya finished third.

“The way the season is going, I was actually surprised we didn’t wreck,” Montoya said. “I’m being honest with you. At least we’re 4 for 4 now, and in the four finishes we got a Top 10 and three Top 5s. We’ve got the pace, just we’ve been very unlucky this year, and we really needed a good finish to gain some points, and to get both the Ganassi cars up there was pretty cool.”

Denny Hamlin was fourth followed by Mark Martin, David Ragan, Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch and Mike Bliss in the top-10.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here (nascar.com).

No one driver stayed out in front for long. There were 88 lead changes, breaking the previous record of 75 set on May 6, 1984.  Another record was set for 29 different drivers to lead during the race, breaking the previous record of 28 set on Oct. 5, 2008.

Other than a competition caution, the first half of the race ran relatively caution-free. It is restrictor plate racing we are talking about, so we knew it was only a matter of time.

A 10-car accident happened on lap 84 when Johnny Sauter bumped Kyle Busch.

A 9-car accident was triggered when Joey Logano turned Ryan Newman after the restart on the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish on lap 190.

There were 8 cautions for 32 laps.

The Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson feud boiled over again. With 7 laps to go, it appeared Johnson slowed down as Gordon was behind him and making a charge to the front. It caused a few other drivers to check up and ultimately caused an accident that Gordon couldn’t help but get caught up in.

“The 48 is really trying my patience,” Gordon said. “It takes a lot to make me mad. I am right now. I don’t know what it is with me and him right now.”

Johnson was involved in an accident just a few laps later, when he made contact with Greg Biffle after the second attempt at a green-white-checkered finish.

Gordon is credited with a 22nd place finish, while Johnson round up 31st.

Jimmie Johnson remains the points leader, but by only 26 points over 2nd place driver, Kevin Harvick.