Driving a car he described as “just flat-out awesome,” Harvick beat Richard Childress Racing teammate Jeff Burton to the finish line by a comfortable 3.529 seconds to win Saturday’s Zippo 200 at The Glen. The victory was Harvick’s second straight, his 31st in the Busch Series--tied with Jack Ingram for second all-time--and the fifth this season in 17 starts.

The 2006 series champion ran away from the rest of the field at Watkins Glen International after a restart on Lap 73. Polesitter Kurt Busch tried to rally over the closing laps, but by the end of the race, Busch had worn out his brakes in attempt to make up for an early four-tire pit top that had cost him valuable track position.

Busch faded to third by the finish, a few car lengths ahead of Paul Menard in fourth. Rookie Brad Coleman ran fifth, followed by Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte, Casey Mears, Ryan Newman and Andy Lally.

After short-pitting on Lap 4, Harvick came to the pits for the final time under caution on Lap 39 and stretched his fuel the rest of the way in the 82-lap event. He restarted seventh on Lap 41, but by the time the fielded took the green flag on Lap 52 after a caution for debris, Harvick was in the lead and well on the way to a second straight Saturday celebration.

This time, however, he didn’t have a disgruntled Robby Gordon as a distraction. Gordon had done a simultaneous burnout with Harvick last Saturday at Montreal in protest of a scoring decision that cost Gordon a chance to win the inaugural Busch race at Montreal.

“It was a really, really smart race that we ran, and we had a really fast car to go with it,” Harvick said. “We stuck to our plan and did everything we planned to do when we were close to our (pit) windows.”

Burton’s chances diminished when he tangled with David Reutimann in the inner loop early in the race and damaged his left front fender. The resulting aerodynamic disadvantage cost Burton the opportunity to challenge his teammate for the win.

“I got a fender torn off of it racing with a lapped car,” Burton said. “That was my fault, and that hurt us throughout the day.”

An optimistic start to the day disintegrated for Busch, who had to abuse his equipment to get back to the front.

“I felt like we had a great day in store for us,” Busch said. “When we pitted early in the race, some guys took fuel only, and that’s what got us way behind. Then our brakes faded away. We had a really good car, really fast most of the day--just behind on pit strategy, I guess. I overworked it, which I didn’t think I could with this little Busch car.”

Harvick didn’t get much recognition for his win in Montreal, as overshadowed as it was by the controversy involving Gordon and Australian Marcos Ambrose, whom Gordon spun with two laps remaining.

“This put the exclamation point on it,” Harvick said of the victory at Watkins Glen. “To have them hardly talk about you when you win a race is kind of frustrating, but you don’t whine about it.

“You just go back out there.”

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