It was a great day for the points leader as Kevin Harvick won his first at Michigan International Speedway!

photo credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR

“It’s been obviously a great day for us,” Harvick said. “It’s really been a great weekend all around and a great year, for that fact. It’s a lot of fun to come to the racetrack right now. Everybody is doing a great job of not only continuing to press but to put better things on the racetrack and put things together correctly and just do a great job at the shop. That’s really all you can ask for right now is to have a chance. You’re going to have the flat tires, the miscues, stuff happen. It’s just a matter of how you rebound. Today we didn’t have to do anything. We were able to take advantage of a really fast racecar and put it where it was supposed to be, and that’s in Victory Lane. So a good day.”

Harvick dueled with Denny Hamlin for the lead for roughly twelve laps, finally taking the lead with 10 to go.

“You know, I was really beating him really bad through three and four -- I thought anyway,” runner-up Hamlin said. “He would catch me getting into turn three, I would pull away in three and four. He was quite a bit better than me in one and two. So it was kind of split. It’s tough. When you are the lead car, of course you’re the one pushing the air. The makes it look worse than probably what it is because he had the draft right behind me. That made it look probably a little bit worse than what it actually was. I definitely couldn’t suck up to me like he sucked up to me. It’s pretty much all we had.”

“I’m just really proud of our whole organization,” team owner Richard Childress said. ‘To come up here and win in Detroit, in Michigan, for GM, to win in that Chevy Impala is big for us. Like you say, it’s been 20 years since RCR won (at Michigan). Kevin almost had the race several years ago. We broke a distributor. I can remember that one. We’ve had some really good runs. But to be able to put it together today, Kevin, he’s figured out how to make this thing work in the groove. He’s got his own groove better than anyone. He gets a lot of credit for today, too. Gil (Martin, #29 crew chief) did a great call. Two tires.”

This is the third win of the season for Harvick and fourteenth career. It’s his first victory at Michigan. He finished second in 2003, his previous best. Harvick officially clinched his spot in The Chase for the Sprint Cup championship which will start after just 3 more races.

“I think over the last four years, you can look at the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) and they’ve done the same thing and won the championship. Until you beat the guy that’s won the last four championships, you know, we’re fast enough to beat ‘em, but the circumstances and all the things have to go your way over the last 10 weeks. It’s not about a whole season anymore; it’s about 10 weeks,” Harvick said. “They’re going to start pretty much dead even or a little bit ahead of us. Hopefully we can keep doing the same thing that we’re doing. It’s like saying you’re going to beat somebody that’s won the last four Super Bowls. Until you beat that guy, there’s no reason to put that pressure on ourselves, I don’t think.”

Three of the four Roush-Fenway Racing drivers finished in the top-5.

“That’s probably one of the strongest performances we’ve had as a team in a long time,” Edwards said of his third place finish. “It definitely is. There at the end I felt like we were coming on. We had a very fast racecar. Greg (Biffle) was real fast. Matt (Kenseth) was real fast. I think if we could have capitalized on those tires, had a little bit of track position, maybe a little bit of a caution or something, we would have been really, really good. This is how you have to run every week if you plan on winning races. Fortunately we’ve been running like this for a while. It’s really good.”

Greg Biffle lead a race-high 66 of 200 laps attempting to grab a win for his team owner, Jack Roush. Roush was in attendance having been released from the Mayo Clinic earlier in the week, about two weeks after surviving a plane crash. “I’ve been extremely lucky to have been able to survive,” Roush said on Friday at the track, adding he has lost vision in his left eye. “I feel in some ways unworthy. I don’t know that I’ve done enough yet for the chances I’ve had.” Roush suffered a fracture in his back, broken jaw, ruptured left eye and damage to his left cheek.

Biffle wound up fourth while Kenseth was fifth. David Ragan finished eleventh.

Tony Stewart lead three times for 36 laps and was running in the lead over the closing laps of the race, but opted not to come to pit road for tires with the rest of the field for the last round of pit stops. Stewart lead 10 laps after the final restart until he was passed by Harvick and Hamlin then slid back to finish sixth. Stewart gained four spots in the standings and is now fourth, 380 points from 1st.

Juan Pablo Montoya finished seventh followed by Martin Truex Jr, Elliott Sadler and Joey Logano.

Logano and Ryan Newman had words in the garage area following the race involving an incident between the two during the race. Contact between the two sent Newman spinning on lap 149.

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

There were 5 cautions for 25 laps and 17 lead changes among 9 drivers:  J. Johnson 1-14; G. Biffle 15-34; K. Harvick 35; G. Biffle 36-60; K. Harvick 61; T. Kvapil 62; G. Biffle 63-83; T. Stewart 84-101; K. Harvick 102-103; T. Stewart 104-110; K. Harvick 111-155; E. Sadler 156-159; M. Truex Jr. 160-164; D. Ragan 165-166; T. Stewart 167-177; D. Hamlin 178-189; K. Harvick 190-200

Current 2010 Driver Standings (following Michigan):

1.   Kevin Harvick, 3400
2.   Jeff Gordon, -293
3.   Denny Hamlin (+3), -353
4.   Tony Stewart (+4), -380
5.   Jimmie Johnson, -386
6.   Carl Edwards (+3), -414
7.   Jeff Burton (-4), -414
8.   Kyle Busch (-1), -425
9.   Matt Kenseth (+1), -439
10. Kurt Busch (-6), -465
11. Greg Biffle, -487
12. Clint Bowyer (+1), -645

Next:
Saturday, August 21st -- Irwin TOOLS Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway