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Harvick looks back seven years ago on first win
By Lee Montgomery - Associate Editor
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Jonathan Ferrey
Getty Images
Seven years after scoring his first win in NASCAR's top series in a dramatic battle with Jeff Gordon at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Kevin Harvick heads back to the Georgia track for Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500 with memories that remain special.
Harvick was in just his third race in Richard Childress Racing’s Chevrolet after replacing Dale Earnhardt, who had died in the Daytona 500 earlier in 2001. Racing in the closing laps with Gordon, Harvick helped salve a lot of wounds across the country by holding Gordon off by a few feet to win the Cracker Barrel 500 that day.
Seven years later, the memories are still special for Harvick.
"I will be honest with you, that whole first win and that first year was really just kind of a blur,” Harvick said recently. “We go back, and it just seems like so much has happened since then, you almost forget about it, but every time you go back, you get that reminder of how things went and what went on.
“It is obviously something you can't ever do again, win your first race, so it’s just pretty cool to go back and watch the race and see how it all finished and how it all shook out. It is a special place for us to go back every time just because of the fact that was the place of our first Cup win.”
Harvick said when he thinks about the race, he remembers making a mistake that nearly ended his chances at victory. Harvick had been driving the low line around the 1.54-mile track, with Gordon trying to pass on the outside.
But on the last lap, Harvick went high.
"When I watch the race, the only thing I think about is I drove in high, and I probably should have went low,” Harvick said. “I almost threw the thing away in a half of a race track there. That is what I think about every time I watch it is, ‘Why did I go high and not go low?’”
It “barely” worked, Harvick said.
“I had gotten to that point by racing on the bottom, and for some reason on the last lap, I thought he was going to go high because I had been going on the bottom but, he wound up going to the bottom, and I went to the top," Harvick said.
As he recalls the race and the days after it, Harvick said he gets chills.
“The circumstances that we won the first race under … we won’t ever forget that moment just because of everything that went on,” Harvick said. “When I start thinking about it, it brings those same chills back that I got when I won that race. I know that I can’t do that again, and that’s obviously because of the circumstances.
“Those are the kind of situations as professionals you dream about. You look for that opportunity to take those moments and try to capitalize on them.”
Mentioned Drivers: Kevin Harvick
2009 Sprint Cup Race for the Chase Standings
Driver Standings after the Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500
| 1 | Jimmie Johnson | 6492 |
| 2 | Mark Martin | -108 |
| 3 | Jeff Gordon | -169 |
| 4 | Kurt Busch | -211 |
| 5 | Tony Stewart | -285 |
| 6 | Juan Pablo Montoya | -289 |
| 7 | Greg Biffle | -321 |
| 8 | Denny Hamlin | -352 |
| 9 | Ryan Newman | -411 |
| 10 | Kasey Kahne | -476 |
| 11 | Carl Edwards | -520 |
| 12 | Brian Vickers | -666 |
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