Kevin Harvick, driver of the #33 Armor Vienna Sausage/Kroger Chevrolet came away with his 37th NASCAR Nationwide Series victory in the Virginia 529 College Savings 250 at Richmond International Raceway on Friday night. The victory tied Harvick with Mike Martin for the most Nationwide Series wins at Richmond with five.  With drivers making their first short track appearance in the new Nationwide car, Harvick sat on the pole and ran out front for the majority of the race, leading 170 of the 250 laps.

With a total of nine lead changes and long green flag stretches, the race was nothing less than exciting.  Harvick, led the first 109 laps, and another 21 laps from laps 133 to 144, and 198 to 206. 

The final lead change came when Harvick picked it up on the heels of a six lap caution from an accident between Clint Bowyer and Brian Scott in turn two.  Despite being held up by lapped traffic and having Brad Keselowski nipping at his heels, Harvick held the lead for the last 40 laps picking up the win.

Harvick’s greatest challenge came in the last moments of the race when he fishtailed, hitting the wall. 

“The way that the lap traffic fell just wasn’t real good for us; and I got a little aggressive with the throttle and got the thing sideways,” he said.

But the new Nationwide car made a difference in comparison to the previous version. “You can bounce ‘em around; you can’t hardly tell if they hit the wall, and it hit it pretty hard,” Harvick said.

“For me, anytime I hit the wall, I’m so nervous,” he said. “So many years, you hit the wall and everything goes wacked out.  We expected [the new car] to be a lot tougher than the other cars; and when you hit it with the tail like that, it’s no big deal, unless it grabs the spoiler. 

“At that point it was ‘check all the mirrors and make sure that we were coming to the last corner’,” Harvick added. “At that point the gloves are off and you gotta do what you gotta do, so it never came to that. 

He quickly recovered without losing speed and managed to keep it ahead of Keselowski for the win.

Keselowski, in the #22 Ruby Tuesday Dodge, was “trying to hit the perfect corner” to come back from as low as 23rd place.  He got a break during the yellow flag and worked his way up to hold the lead for 35 laps near the last quarter of the race.

Keselowski locked up his brakes in the last lap to avoid tapping out Harvick the last lap. 

“It was obviously closer than we wanted it to be, but I’m sure it was exciting to watch,” Harvick said. 

Trevor Bayne, with a career best finish took third in the Out! Pet Care Toyota (#99) and he was pleased with the new car, as did the other leaders. “I am really excited about this run we had today,” Bayne said. “That was awesome to get a top-three here with these new cars.”