HAMPTON, Ga. - Three was the charm for Kevin Harvick Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Harvick has now won in NASCAR's top three divisions at Atlanta Motor Speedway after he completed the trifecta with a win in Saturday's NASCAR Camping World Truck Series E-Z-GO 200.
Harvick, who has also won in all three divisions at Phoenix, turned in a dominating performance leading 100 laps to score an easy win over runnerup Kyle Busch, who rebounded from his Daytona disappointment to score a good finish for his new truck team.
"We started running more truck races to protect from Kyle winning seven or so truck races a year to begin with," said Harvick. "So to beat him today was a good feeling.
"We had a very good truck and our pit stops were perfect. It feels really good to have a truck that fast and to be able to win here agin in Atlanta in very cool."
Busch, who had a practice incident in the day's final Sprint Cup Series practice, didn't have much for the winner.
"That was about the best we had today," said Busch, who despite the Cup Series scuffle with Boris Said will still start outside Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500 front row. "After Daytona it was good to come back and run strong but of course we're disappointed we couldn't challenge Kevin for the win there at the end."
Aric Almirola and Steve Wallace finished third and fourth to give team owner Billy Ballew two drivers in the top five. For Wallace the run marked his first career truck series start.
Todd Bodine rebounded from an earlier race scuffle to round out the top five.
Ricky Carmichael, who flew immediately to Daytona following the event to take in the AMA Super Cross Series race, finished sixth for his best career truck series finish.
Timothy Peters, Johnny Sauter, Rick Crawford and Austin Dillon completed the first ten finishers.
Harvick averaged 120.926 mph in the win and was 1.308-seconds ahead of Busch at the finish line.
Nine lead changes were shared by six different drivers in the race which was slowed by six caution flags for a total of 27 laps.
Bodine leads the point standings by four over Peters with Jason White, Almirola and Busch rounding out the top five.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series now heads to Martinsville Speedway for the Kroger 250 on March 27th.
