The 2006 NASCAR Cup Series season saw Richard Childress Racing stumble out of the gate, particularly with their flagship No. 29 Chevy piloted by Kevin Harvick.
Poor results at Fontana and Atlanta compounded by middling efforts at Daytona and Las Vegas left the 29 team 23rd in the points standings after four events, leaving them in desperate need of a shot in the arm to put themselves in the Chase for the first time.
The California native got right to it the following week in Bristol where even a snow storm couldn’t stop the GM Goodwrench ride from landing a runner-up finish, coming up just short to Kurt Busch in the Blue Deuce.
Harvick followed Bristol up with strong performances at Martinsville and Texas, setting the 30-year-old racer up to continue this great stretch at one of his worst tracks, Phoenix Raceway.
While it might be funny to read that last sentence now, Harvick’s previous starts at the Desert Diamond failed to generate much confidence in the 29 group’s ability to perform at the flat and treacherous one-mile oval.
Harvick’s record at the track up to that April weekend included just one top-5 in Cup, two Truck Series victories in 2002 and 2003, and three top-5s in the O’Reilly Series. All of this minor success is amid a number of DNFs and crashes across all three series.
That is, until the night before the race in question where Harvick took home his second O’Reilly Series win in a row.
After leader Kurt Busch had a tire go down under caution with under 50 laps to go, Harvick inherited the lead and never looked back, holding off a furious charge from Reed Sorenson to take the checkers.
Saturday night’s showdown looked to be an uphill battle, though.
As was often the case in his tenure at RCR, Harvick qualified a modest 15th for the event, and after Tony Stewart was moved to the back for a tire change, Harvick moved up to 13th for the second annual Subway Fresh 500.
Greg Biffle took his Subway machine to the lead early, getting the jump on pole sitter Kyle Busch to lead the race’s opening stages while Harvick only gained one position by the time the first caution fell for debris on lap 26.
The 29 team picked up a spot on pit road and moved forward from there, scooting by Matt Kenseth to climb into the top-10 on lap 41, but the stint was short-lived as the Goodwrench car dropped to 12th by the time Dave Blaney’s tire went down on lap 54 to bring out the next caution.
The Bakersfield Basher remained in 12th after a second set of pit stops and gradually moved by his competitors until Scott Riggs’ spin brought the field to pace car speed for a third time.
On the next wave of pit stops, the pit crew held up their end of the bargain by keeping their black-and-silver Monte Carlo SS in eighth position where he stayed until the race hit the 100-lap mark.
Just as they took lap 100 though, the race went under the red flag.
What initially looked like just an unfortunate moment for Kyle Busch after he lost a left-rear tire in turn 1 quickly grew into something much larger as contact between Kyle Petty and Michael Waltrip on the exit of turn 4 caused the entire track to be blocked with wrecked race cars.
The race resumed on lap 105 with Roush teammates Biffle and Martin jostling for the top spot, and over the next 20 laps, Martin scampered away into the distance while Biffle’s Subway Ford Fusion dropped down the running order.
Biffle’s sudden fall provided Harvick with an opportunity to move into the top-5 for the first time while the sun set behind the grandstands.
By the halfway point, Happy sat comfortably in fourth when he came down to pit on lap 171, and after a brief hiccup on exit due to Jeff Gordon entering his own stall, the 29 team dropped two spots in the running order by the time the cycle completed with 136 laps remaining.
A debris caution on lap 200 brought the field to pit road once again where a major shake-up occurred: leader Mark Martin’s crew missed a lug nut on the AAA Ford, forcing him to relinquish his spot and come back to the pits.
Martin’s bad fortune represented RCR’s gain as rookie Clint Bowyer led a Cup race for the first time with just over 100 laps remaining after running in the top-5 all night.
Harvick lurked behind Bowyer in fourth with Biffle and last-place starter Tony Stewart between their two Childress Chevys.
As the race eased into its final 100 laps, rookie JJ Yeley spun in turn 4 along with fellow rookie Brent Sherman. This Phoenix race would be the last Cup start of Sherman’s Cup career.
Bowyer fired away on the restart with 96 to go with Stewart in hot pursuit. Going through turns 3 and 4, Stewart swept underneath Bowyer, completing his last-to-first challenge by leading his first laps of the night with the finish in sight.
With 90 laps to go, Dale Earnhardt Jr. tried sneaking by the lapped car of Kyle Petty on the apron in turn 4, but the move didn’t go over well, spinning Petty’s Dodge around and triggering another multi-car melee that included mid-race favorite Mark Martin and Ryan Newman.
Bowyer’s team ceded a few spots on the final stop, bumping his teammate Harvick up to third with an 88-lap run to the finish.
At the top of the show, Larry McReynolds advised that the fuel run could at best be 85 laps, so making it to the end from here is far from a guarantee. Foreshadowing is so fun!
Radios lit up with close to 50 laps to go regarding fuel mileage with new leader Greg Biffle’s team urging their driver to save fuel just as Harvick’s crew advised that he was one lap short and needed to keep saving in order to make it.
With 30 laps to go, the ticker stated that Harvick was still 4.3 seconds behind Biffle.
As they inched towards the finish, Stewart and Harvick’s pace picked up with Stewart applying the pressure to Biffle with 20 laps to go, and just as they were rounding turn 4, Mike Joy confirmed that both Harvick and Mark Martin could make it to the end on fuel.
Kevin carved chunks out of the gap over the next handful of laps, digging in at 100 percent while his competitors were forced to tread carefully to the finish.
Right before setting the pass up on Stewart for second with 15 laps to go, Mike Joy remarked that this would be the first stretch of four top-10 finishes for Harvick since the 2003 season when he finished fifth in the final standings.
The GM Goodwrench machine buried the car into turn 1 with 13 laps to go to finish the pass on Stewart, setting his sights on an old rival in Biffle.
Once they approached turn 3 with 10 to go, Harvick wasted no time, using the apron again to help him facilitate the pass on Biffle. It would be the first lap he’d ever led in Cup at Phoenix Raceway.
Though Harvick quickly skittered away, his competition began dropping like flies behind the 29’s black-and-silver rear bumper.
Biffle’s Roush teammate Jamie McMurray pitted with five to go while Biffle joined him the next time around after crew chief Doug Richert initially guaranteed Greg they’d make it to the finish.
As Harvick rounded turn 4 to take the white flag, Mike Joy exclaimed that Martin — a third Roush Ford — came up empty just moments after his crew chief confirmed they could make it to the end.
At the end of lap 312, Kevin Harvick took the checkered flag to complete the Phoenix weekend sweep and close out on his sixth career NASCAR Cup Series victory under the desert night sky.
Speaking to Fox Sport’s Matt Yocum in victory lane (remember when we used to do that?), Harvick hopped out of his winning ride and said, “We didn’t have the best car all day today, but we had the best car when it counted.”
(Top Photo Credit: LAT Photographic/Autoweek)
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