Kevin Harvick survives pit stop woes to win race

(editor's note:  Amanda has been having computer issues but mangaed to get a copy of her Nationwide post to me so I could post it for her)

Kevin Harvick, who had the most laps led with 82, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning Saturday’s Sam's Town 300. This is Harvick’s second win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (last one was in 2004)  via nascar-assets.americaneagle.com.  Credit: Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR

Kevin Harvick overcame two poor pitstops by his No. 33 during Saturday's Sam's Town 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to take the team to victory lane following the event. He took advantage of four tires his team put on his car during the next-to-last caution of the race, passing Denny Hamlin, who only took two on the same stop, on the restart following the final caution.

"The race started great and ended great, but the middle wasn’t so good on pit road," Harvick said.

Despite most of the cars around him being on four fresh tires, Hamlin held his ground after being passed by Harvick to finish in the runner-up spot. Hamlin was followed across the line by points leader Carl Edwards. With a finish of third, Edwards keeps a string of top-five finishes alive, finishing in the top-five in all three races so far in 2010.

Pole sitter Brad Keselowski rebounded late to finish fourth after falling back early due to what the team thinks was some kind of engine issue. Whatever the problem was, it seemed to ventually fade away, allowing Keselowski to come back up through the field to finish in the top-five and take over the second position in the points standings.

Brian Vickers rounded out the top-five. The highest finishing non-Sprint Cup competitors were Trevor Bayne, who finished sixth, and Justin Allgaier who faded back to seventh by the end of the race as a result of being on older tires than everyone else near the front -- opting to not take tires on the next to last caution when much of the rest of the field took four and Hamlin took two.

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