Harvick wins Busch race in Texas; Montoya finishes 28th

FORT WORTH, Texas -- It would be hard to blame Kevin Harvick if he wanted the NASCAR Busch Series season to go on forever.

Harvick dominated the field again Saturday in the O'Reilly Challenge 300 at Texas Motor Speedway, winning for the second straight week and third time in his last four starts. It was the ninth Busch victory of what is already a championship season for the Nextel Cup star.

To cap another great day for Harvick, after being told by his team he was going to be close on gas, he did run out -- at the finish.

Harvick chuckled as he took the checkered flag and said on the radio: "Out of gas, boys. Awesome!"

With the title determined last month in Charlotte, most of the prerace attention was on newcomer Juan Pablo Montoya, starting only his second NASCAR race in preparation for a full-time Cup ride next season.

The former Champ Car and Formula One star had a difficult but educational day on the 1.5-mile Texas oval.

He qualified 10th, but started near the rear of the 43-car field after having to make a stop during the pace laps to realign the front valance on his Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge. When the race began, he moved steadily through the pack and was up to 25th before slipping up the banking and bouncing hard off the wall.

That sent Montoya to the pits for repairs and left him 41st, two laps off the pace. Driving a damaged car that couldn't keep up with the leaders, Montoya stayed on track to the end, finishing 28th -- three laps behind Harvick.

After getting out of his car in Victory Lane, Harvick, who has 16 consecutive top 10 finishes in Busch, said: "There were no burnouts today for a reason. It ran out (of gas) coming out of turn four. They told me it was going to be close and it would have been my fault if we had run out.

"It's just been one of those years when everything goes right," added Harvick, within one win of Sam Ard's 1983 season record of 10 with two races remaining.

Harvick beat fellow Cup star Tony Stewart to the finish by 0.862-seconds -- about five car-lengths. Jeff Burton was third, followed by pole-winner Mark Martin and Ron Hornaday Jr., the highest-finishing Busch regular. Cup drivers have won 31 of 33 Busch races this season.

Told that Harvick ran out of gas at the end, Stewart shrugged.

"I wouldn't have wanted to win it that way," he said. "It was so much fun running with him. We just had two identical cars today."

Harvick enters Sunday's Dickies 500 sixth in the Cup points and with an outside chance to become the first driver to win NASCAR's top two titles in the same season.