Busch won his third consecutive Nationwide race by leading 91 of 200 laps Friday night at Texas, where he became the first six-time winner in the series at the 1½-mile, high-banked track.

“It’s fast. It just suits right into my style,” Busch said. “It’s such a fun race. … It’s also being part of this JGR team.”

While driving a car he owned last season, Busch didn’t win in the Nationwide Series. This year back in the Gibbs ride, since having engine problems and finishing 32nd in the opener at Daytona, he has four wins and a runner-up finish to push his series victory record to 55.

Busch, who described his Toyota as “flawless,” Busch finished 2.27 seconds ahead of Brad Keselowski in his Ford. Austin Dillon finished third and Dale Earnhardt Jr. fourth, both in Chevrolets.

“Definitely Kyle is really strong, he’s a great driver for sure. But I think you have to look at the cars they have at Gibbs,” Keselowski said. “I think last year was a bit of an eye-opener for us. … Joey (Logano) won a bunch of races in that same car, and Kyle had the reverse fortune. I think that shows you the effort that Gibbs puts into the series, and they’ve been rewarded as they should for that effort.”

Logano was a nine-time winner in 22 Nationwide races for Gibbs last season. Busch did have nine top-five finishes without winning in his car last season, and now is the first driver to win four of the first six Nationwide races to start a season.

Even Busch acknowledged that the guys at Joe Gibbs racing sure make it seem easy.

“If you put an elite driver in an elite car, you should get elite results and that’s what you’ve seen,” Keselowski said.

Busch now has 110 victories in NASCAR’s three top series, including 25 in the Sprint Cup Series and 30 in trucks.

Right before the start of the Nationwide race, Busch won the pole for Saturday night’s Sprint Cup race at Texas.

After sweeping both Nationwide races in Texas in 2008 and 2009, Busch won the spring race in 2010 before finishing second that fall to end his Lone Star State winning streak.

Friday night’s race featured a Texas-record 11 leaders and 22 lead changes. Busch led five times, including the final 31 laps after going back in front out during the last caution.

Sam Hornish Jr. maintained the series points lead despite finishing 34th. He made contact with Jeremy Clements and spun into the infield grass with just more than 55 laps left, doing significant damage to his car.

His lead over Regan Smith shrunk from 20 to two. Smith finished seventh.

Alex Bowman, who was dealing with flu-like symptoms when he won the pole earlier Friday, finished 14th.

Eric McClure got out of his Toyota early in the race because of his own illness. He was replaced by Jeff Green, who had already parked his car after three laps. He drove McClure’s car (14) to a 30th-place finish.

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“In my opinion, it was just hard racing,” Earnhardt said during Tuesday’s national conference call. “The guy is leading the race, he’s trying to do what he can to win.”

Stewart didn’t agree.

The three-time Cup champion cut off Logano’s car on pit road after the race and went after him physically before being separated by crew members and officials. He then went on a verbal tirade against the 22-year-old Penske Racing driver.

“He has that right, he has the choice to do that,” Stewart said of blocking. “If he ever turns down across in front of me again, I don’t care what lap it is, he won’t make it through the other end of it.

“I’m tired of these guys doing that stuff. Especially out of a kid that’s been griping about everybody else and then he does that the next week. He sent Denny [Hamlin] to the hospital and screwed our day up.”

Stewart, who finished 22nd, was referring to a last-lap crash involving Logano and Hamlin racing for the lead. Hamlin, who wrecked Logano a week earlier at Bristol, suffered a compression fracture in his lower back when his car hit a concrete inside retaining wall and will miss up to five races.

Earnhardt understands there are some who get more upset about blocking than others. He’s just not one of them.

“Every driver is going to have a different opinion,” said Earnhardt, who took advantage of the last-lap crash to finish second and move into the points lead. “I might block in certain situations. I would expect and accept to be blocked in certain situations.

“But you’ve got to give me racetrack. You’ve got to give me somewhere to run. You can’t just run me up into the fence. You’ve got to give me a lane. If you give me a reasonable amount of racetrack to race on, then I really can’t complain in regards to what you’re trying to do to maintain the position.”

Earnhardt said the time of the race also is a factor when it comes to blocking.

“Is it time to be blocking?” he said. “Is the position that important at that moment in time? Again, everybody will have a different opinion. But when somebody blocks me, I’m not blown away by the notion.

“You know, I’m not going to say that I’ve never blocked anybody because I have, and you do, you will. Being in certain situations, that’s your only alternative. But you’ve got to give people racing room or expect to get turned around or expect to make a few people upset.”

Stewart caused a 25-car pileup in which Earnhardt suffered a concussion that sidelined him for two Chase races defending the lead in the closing lap at Talladega last fall.

Stewart, who has been outspoken about blocking several times the past few years, apologized after the race.

“I just screwed up,” he said. “I turned down and cut across Michael [Waltrip] and crashed the whole field. It was my fault, blocking and trying to stay where I was at.”

Logano never got a chance to discuss what happened with Stewart. He said after the race he had to slow down so as not to jump the race leader on the restart, and that when he did Stewart was able to get a jump on him.

“I had to throw the block there,” Logano said. “That was the race for the lead. I felt if [Stewart] got underneath me, that was going to be the end of my opportunity to win the race.”

Logano said he planned to tell Stewart the same thing when they spoke. Asked if he was willing to talk to Logano, Stewart said, “Hell no.”

“After he threw the water bottle at me like a little girl, we’ll go at it now,” he said.

Stewart also referred to Logano as a spoiled rich kid who never worked a day in his life. That brought up another issue that Earnhardt discussed in relation to how his 12-year-old niece Karsyn has many of the same financial advantages Logano had as she pursues a career in racing.

“Hopefully, she’s talented enough, no matter what your background or what your path is to where you are … if you have talent, you belong, and you earn respect through that talent,” he said. “If you’re really good at your job and really good at what you do, it won’t matter how you got there.”

Opinions will vary on that just as they will on blocking. Stewart’s teammate, Ryan Newman, called blocking a “chicken way to drive.”

“It’s just something I don’t do,” he said. “If you’ve got a run on me, take it. If I can get through the corner better than you, then we’ll race, but blocking is an IndyCar form or F1 form or an open-wheel type move it seems like.

“It’s not to say they don’t do it in NASCAR; obviously they do. But to me, it’s just a chicken way of driving and not very respectful for the guys around you. You’re there to race. You’re not there to block.”

Newman didn’t know if Stewart and Logano had talked or planned to before Sunday’s race at Martinsville, but he said you have to be aware if they’re around each other on the half-mile track where contact is expected.

“You have to know what’s going on and watch out for the dramas, but at the same time I have a race of my own to run, and a part of that is watching out for what’s going on, whether it’s something that’s carried over from the past few weeks or something that has happened that day,” Newman said. “Going to have to keep tabs on who turns who or who’s angry or where’s everybody at on their scorecards as you go through a race like Martinsville sometimes.”

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“What I know is when the racing is tighter and there’s more passing, there’s just more excitement and more contact and more things that happen,” France told ESPN.com Tuesday as the Sprint Cup Series heads into its first off weekend. “That’s kind of what NASCAR is all about.

“Kind of what happened on Sunday was a prototype event for how we would look what a good event ought to look like.”

Hamlin suffered a compression fracture to a vertebra in his lower back when he crashed hard into a concrete barrier while battling former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Joey Logano for the lead on the last lap. He is expected to miss six weeks.

It was the second time in two weeks the drivers were involved in an on-track incident. Hamlin spun Logano out while Logano raced Jeff Gordon for the lead a week earlier at Bristol.

But France said he has no plans to talk to them about settling their feud.

“No, because what they did, notwithstanding that Denny got injured, what they did in the last 20 laps is exactly what we would have expected them to do,” France said. “This is a contact sport. It’s always been a contact sport, especially late in the race.

“They were going at it. It probably didn’t hurt the competitiveness that both drivers didn’t want the other one to win. They also did want to win themselves. That’s how NASCAR racing goes. We won’t be having any conversation with them.”

But Hamlin’s crash raised the question of why there weren’t SAFER barriers on the inside retaining wall where his car hit, and why tracks aren’t required to have SAFER barriers everywhere.

France said NASCAR is studying Hamlin’s crash carefully, and that if experts recommend SAFER barriers are needed where it occurred, the governing body will make that recommendation to the track.

But France said the solution is not as simple as putting barriers everywhere.

“The reason, there’s not a one-solution-fits-all-problem with the wall,” he said. “Some walls, it might sling the car back into the racing groove at the wrong time. They’ll never put SAFER barriers up everywhere because that’s not the best approach.

“If the current approach can be improved, we’re certainly going to do that. We’re looking at the accident that Denny had very carefully.”

France has been busier than usual to start the season. He met with reigning champion Brad Keselowski in late February to discuss questionable comments the Penske Racing driver made in a newspaper article.

Then came a suspension of Nationwide Series driver Jeremy Clements for using a racial slur in front of an MTV reporter, followed by a $25,000 fine to Hamlin for criticizing the new Gen-6 car and the quality of racing at Phoenix.

France acknowledged it was primarily his decision to penalize Hamlin, and he stood by that decision.

“There’s always going to be, when we make decisions that are not black and white per se, we’re always going to have people all over the organization that may not have made that call,” France said. “But I did. I’m crystal clear with everybody about where the line is, what we can accept, and about how the sport is going today.

“And that is we give more latitude than any professional sport to criticize, speak their mind and say whatever they want. We encourage it, actually, including criticism that gets directed at us. But when the driver . . . begins to call out the quality of the racing or the rules packages, we have to make that call or opinions will shape what may not be reality.”

France met with Hamlin, who dropped his right to appeal the fine, and believes they are on the same page now.

France also believes the quality of racing is better than ever with the new car. He didn’t rule out tweaks in the future or a change in the package for restrictor-plate racing at Daytona and Talladega, but overall he is pleased.

“It’s hard to argue with five different winners and all the manufacturers seem to have a fair opportunity and they’re all in the winner’s circle,” he said. “And there’s a lot more passing.

“But I think it’s too early to say we’ve got the perfect package. That’s always going to be a work in progress.”

There have been 147 green-flag passes for the lead in 2013, up from 122 after five races a year ago and down from 203 in 2011 and 298 in 2010.

France also noted that television ratings in general are up, another sign the sport is headed in the right direction.

“We have some momentum,” he said. “Some really good things have happened to us. We all know ratings are still driven by storylines and matchups in a given weekend. You saw that last weekend where basketball ratings were up because they had better matchups than they’ve had or Tiger Woods was on the leaderboard [in golf].

“We’ll just keep working on what we can do. If we have close, great racing like we have, then the ratings will take care of themselves. For all the things that could have gone wrong with the new car and a new season, a lot of good things went really well and we’re pleased with that.”

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The first mistake was bumping Logano too hard on Lap 349 in retaliation for the way the Penske Racing driver raced him earlier. The bump sent Logano into a spin when he was battling Jeff Gordon for the lead and ruined any chance he had of contending for the victory.

The second was for attacking Logano personally after a postrace shoving match between the crews that began when Logano approached Hamlin at his car.

“He said he was coming for me,” Hamlin said after the incident. “I usually don’t see him, so it’s not a factor.”

On the first mistake, Hamlin said he was trying to send Logano a message with a tap after Logano pinched down on him too hard earlier.

“I felt bad, and really if you could watch my in-car camera, you could see how frustrated I was to see he had damage to his car,” Hamlin said before the first practice at Auto Club Speedway. “I banged the steering wheel because I was, ‘Man, I didn’t mean to do that.'”

Hamlin said that gave the impression he was trying to “bully” Logano, which he was not.

“I wish the cameras would see what happened before the contact you saw on TV,” he said. “That frustrates me the most. I’m not trying to bully Joey around because of performance.”

Then came what Hamlin called “the big mistake.”

“At the end of the race I shouldn’t have degraded him as a driver,” he said. “It’s not my job to say who’s good or bad in our sport. That part probably should have been left out.”

Hamlin and Logano haven’t communicated since a battle of words Sunday night on Twitter. Logano indicated the issue that began at the Daytona 500 with Hamlin criticizing his driving wasn’t over.

“I feel like I’ve told him everything I can tell him,” Logano told ESPN.com earlier in the week. “I’ve got nothing to say.”

Hamlin considers the issue over because they haven’t talked.

“He has my phone number, and I have his,” he said. “I assume when Bristol is over with it’s over with unless spoken to otherwise. I voiced to him he had my number. If he had a problem with anything that went on, then we could talk about it. I’m assuming by no contact it’s over at this point.”

Logano said he is still upset over what happened.

“Until anyone says anything to me personally, no, it’s not over,” said Logano.

Hamlin isn’t concerned that Logano will retaliate Sunday.

“I don’t believe so,” Hamlin said. “We both have the same goal in mind. The first thing is you need to win races. The second thing is you need to make the Chase. Messing with each other on the racetrack is a huge distraction for that. You cannot do your job a hundred percent the way you’re supposed to if you’re constantly worried about somebody else.

“My guess is going into this weekend and beyond he’s going to be worried about his program and I’m going to be worried about mine.”

Logano said winning races, not wrecking Hamlin, is his top priority.

“You remember things like that, obviously,” he said of what happened at Bristol. “You don’t go out there aiming for somebody. Obviously, I’m out there to win races and run for a championship.

“But at the same time, you don’t forget what happened. You don’t forget three years down the road what happened. It’s always there. That’s the case for everybody I would assume.”

Logano said he and Hamlin weren’t buddies away from the track during his four years in the No. 20 Cup car at JGR. Hamlin said nothing went on in their relationship that would lead to what has happened this season.

“I felt like [it was] an OK relationship off the racetrack as teammates,” Hamlin said. “On the racetrack, we didn’t go to him for as much information as they probably came to us. I think at times during our tenure as teammates he felt like I probably raced him too hard at times. There was times when I felt he raced me too hard as teammates.

“That went back and forth a little bit behind the scenes, but definitely not the displeasure for each other like we’ve seen the first few races this year.”

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NASCAR also will not penalize six drivers called to the hauler after the California race for entering pit road following the checkered flag when pit road was closed. Neither Stewart nor Logano was called to the hauler.

“A few years ago, we backed away from micromanaging a driver’s emotions,” Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said on Tuesday. “You would hope in today’s world that if somebody didn’t win a race they would be upset about it for whatever reason.

“That’s what our drivers do, they try to win races.”

Darby said there’s a limit to what NASCAR will allow, noting “if guys get in a helluva fight, yeah, we’re going to have to react.”

But Darby said what happened with Stewart and Logano did not put anybody in danger, as was the case in 2011 when Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick were docked $25,000 each for a pit road incident at Darlington.

In that incident, Harvick took a swing at Busch, who remained in his car. Busch then tried to pull away, pushing Harvick’s car into the inside retaining walls with safety workers and crew members in the area.

Darby said there was nothing in the Stewart-Logano incident that came close to that.

Stewart was upset that Logano blocked him on the final restart and that Denny Hamlin was injured in an ensuing wreck that occurred racing Logano for the lead.

After the race, Stewart cut off Logano’s car on pit road with his, approached the Penske Racing driver and then shoved him in the chest. A scuffle erupted between the drivers and team members. Stewart followed that with a verbal assault.

“Dumb little son-of-a-b—- runs us clear down to the infield,” Stewart said in a taped interview shown on Fox’s live broadcast after the race with the profanities bleeped out. “He wants to b—- about everybody else and he’s the one who drives like a little b—-. I’m going to bust his ass.”

Because the words were bleeped out, there was no violation. Darby said there was no foul in the entire incident.

“A couple of drivers at the end of the race arguing a little bit doesn’t create a foul in our world today,” he said. “The crews did a great job of managing their drivers to make sure it didn’t cross the line to where there was physical violence or anything like that. That’s what you’d hope for.

“That’s another example of the state of competition in NASCAR racing, the disappointment that comes sometimes when you don’t win a race. I don’t see any foul there at all.”

As for Hamlin, who suffered a compression fracture in the L1 vertebra of his lower back, it was determined late Tuesday that he won’t need surgery but will be sidelined at least six weeks.

Joe Gibbs Racing said in a statement that Dr. Jerry Petty of Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates will determine “when Hamlin will be able to return to racing this season.”
If he heals according to Petty’s estimated timeline, he’d only miss five races because NASCAR is off this weekend.

Darby said Hamlin’s car that ran into a concrete inside retaining wall will be studied by NASCAR. He said NASCAR and experts also will review where Hamlin’s car hit to determine if recommendations will be made for the track to install SAFER barriers there.

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Greg Biffle finished second and Brad Keselowski was third in the qualifying session, but they’ll start at the back after their Fords needed engine changes.

Although he ran early in a long qualifying session, Hamlin earned his first pole of the season and the 13th of his career. He won three last year, and has won the pole three times at Auto Club Speedway.

After his strong performance last year, Hamlin was confident his new Gen-6 race car would produce the same old results.

“These cars have different bodies on them, (but) they’re the same race cars we’ve been racing for a really long time, so everything pretty much correlated,” he said. “I love this racetrack. A lot of the reason is because it’s bumpy and it’s worn out. … You poll the drivers, this is one of the favorite racetracks we go to.”

Hamlin nicely shook off last week’s tumultuous performance in Bristol, where he exchanged contact with Joey Logano and eventually hit the wall in the closing laps, struggling to finish 23rd despite leading the most laps. Hamlin and Logano then had a confrontation after the race, with their teams briefly scuffling.

Biffle was right behind at 187.217 mph in his Roush Fenway Racing Ford. Keselowski was third, beating Kyle Busch’s 187.130 mph in fourth place.

But Biffle and Keselowski both had engine issues in practice, forcing them to start from the back. Given how well their cars performed with the new engines, neither driver seemed terribly concerned.

“That was a spectacular lap considering everything we did today,” Biffle said. “The guys worked really hard to get the engine changed. I got out with three minutes to go to make a lap, and we made adjustments from that lap and were able to put down a pretty fast lap. … We’re going to get a good pit stall for the race, and we’ll have to start at the back, so that’s unfortunate, but I’m proud of the car that we’re going to have for the race.”

Keselowski had his third top-10 time in five races this season, though he won’t get to enjoy it.

“I’m a little nervous about the engine issues the 16 and 2 cars both had in practice,” Keselowski said. “Hopefully those will subside for the race, and we’re both going to start in the back. … It’s unfortunate, but we will have a good time hopefully racing to the front.”

Defending champion Tony Stewart qualified eighth, and Mark Martin was ninth in front of Kurt Busch. Kasey Kahne, who won last week at Bristol, qualified 16th — right behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 15th and ahead of teammate Jimmie Johnson in 18th.

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Former teammates Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano exchanged words after the race — in person and on Twitter — because Hamlin spun Logano as Logano was racing for the lead.

A flat tire knocked Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth out of the race while they were running 1-2.

Typical Bristol, right?

It looked that way as Kahne and Keselowski staged a spectacular battle for the lead, only for a caution to put them side-by-side for a restart with 39 laps to go.

Keselowski had an issue, he either spun his tires or the Hamlin-Logano feud disrupted his start, and Kahne sailed away for his first career victory at Bristol.

“Feels really good to win at this place,” Kahne said. “Such a tough track over the years. This is a big race for me. When you race in the Sprint Cup Series, Bristol is a race you want to win.”

Tempers flared after the race when Logano leaned inside Hamlin’s window to complain about Hamlin spinning him as he tried to pass Gordon for the lead.

Logano was pulled away from Hamlin’s car by crew members for both drivers in a classic post-Bristol clash that delighted the crowd. “They’re fighting! It’s Bristol!” yelled Clint Bowyer, who saw the action on the infield big screen.

Logano wouldn’t discuss what he told Hamlin, but indicated there’s no love lost between the former Joe Gibbs Racing teammates.

“That’s a freaking genius behind the wheel of the 11 car — probably the worst teammate I’ve ever had,” Logano said. “I have a scorecard and I’m not putting up with that. What goes around, comes around. I had to put up with him for years, so whatever.”

Hamlin shrugged it all off.

“He said he was coming for me,” Hamlin said. “I usually don’t see him, so it’s usually not a factor.”

The two sparred briefly on Twitter after the season-opening Daytona 500, when Hamlin complained Logano ruined the closing laps of the race. But he said Sunday’s flap was not a carryover.

“It didn’t have anything to do with that,” Hamlin said. “You’ve really got to control your car and he slipped up into me. Really, he would have been in the garage with no radiator in it if I had not checked up twice. I meant to run in to him. I didn’t mean to spin him out, but his day was fine. We finished bad and he finished bad. It’s even.”

But they continued sniping at each other after the race on Twitter, overshadowing what was undoubtedly the best race to date for NASCAR’s new Gen-6 race car.

And, their feuding may have played a role in the outcome of the race, too.

Keselowski was the leader on the final restart as he lined up next to Kahne. Hamlin was lined up behind Keselowski, with Logano lined up behind Hamlin. When the flag waved, Keselowski didn’t go and Kahne rocketed to the lead and never looked back.

Although it appeared Keselowski spun his tires, he was adamant after the race about what happened — “I got ran over!” — and that prevented him from breaking away on the restart.

Hamlin backed up Keselowski’s account.

“The 22 (Logano) ran into me and shoved me into (Keselowski),” Hamlin said. “Sorry to the 2, but I was the pinball in the sandwich. Once he throttled up, the 22 lifted me up and just flat out pinned me up against the 2.”

Logano seemed to think Keselowski spun his tires and that created the bottleneck, but Keselowski believed he had help from behind.

“I haven’t seen the replay, I just know my rear tires were off the ground before I got to the restart zone,” he said. “Eventually I got hit so hard it pushed my foot in the gas pedal, made myself look like a (fool). That was the deal. Never had another chance.”

Nobody came close to Kahne, who drove his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to the win by 1.7-seconds. Hendrick drivers have now won two of the first four races this season.

Kyle Busch snagged second from Keselowski, who took over the Sprint Cup Series points lead as the only driver to open the season with four top-five finishes. Kurt Busch finished fourth and was followed by Bowyer and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Ryan Newman was seventh, Brian Vickers was eighth and Paul Menard and Jamie McMurray rounded out the top 10.

The race changed dramatically with 110 laps to go in a bizarre crash between leaders Gordon and Matt Kenseth. Gordon was out front when he suddenly lost a tire and his car darted up the track into the wall.

Kenseth had nowhere to go to avoid him and drove directly into the back of Gordon, causing heavy damage to both cars.

“You all right?” crew chief Alan Gustafson radioed Gordon.

“Yeah, I’m OK. Did we take out Matt, too?” Gordon asked.

With the top two cars in the garage, the rest of the field headed to pit road to reset for the final 100 laps.

“I hate that for Matt Kenseth,” Gordon said. “He was coming, and it was just a matter of time before he caught us. We needed points. This definitely isn’t going to get us many.”

Kenseth, winner of last week’s race at Las Vegas, said the crash was unavoidable.

“There’s not a lot either one of us can do about that,” he said. “There was nowhere to go.”

Before the Gordon-Kenseth crash, Gordon and Logano were dueling for the lead. Gordon used a two-tire stop with about 175 laps to go to gain eight spots on pit road and take the lead. Logano chased Gordon around the 0.533-mile bullring, pulling even with the four-time champion as he exited the corners only to lose ground on the straights.

Lurking behind in third was Hamlin, who apparently got tired of waiting for Logano to get past Gordon and showed how restless he was with slight contact on Logano’s bumper as they exited Turn 2.

The tap caused Logano to back his car into the wall and took him out of contention, leading to the post-race drama Bristol is known to create.

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“Nobody in the whole field had any clue what was going to happen,” he said, “so we felt like we had a good chance.”

Harvick dominated Saturday night’s exhibition Sprint Unlimited, winning the kickoff to Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway for the third time in five years. Harvick ties Tony Stewart and Dale Jarrett as three-time winners of the event, while the late Dale Earnhardt holds the record with six wins.

But no one has a firm grasp on what the season-opening Daytona 500 will look like in NASCAR’s brand new car. The non-points race only had 19 cars at the start, and the field was whittled down to 12 after an early accident.

The Daytona 500 will start with a full 43-car field in much warmer conditions.

“It’s going to be a pack, absolutely,” Harvick said. “I don’t think there’s going to be too many chances. You’ll see some cars break away. I think if you turn on a 2000 race, one of those races, it’s going to be very similar.”

Second-place finisher Greg Biffle agreed the Daytona 500 should have a throwback feel.

“I heard some guys talk about old-school racing, and it is a little bit like that,” he said. “The thing about it is that when you get 43 cars out there, it is going to be a ton different. Then the bottom lane is going to work. There will be a middle. With more cars out there I think it will be better.”

Fans hope so after Saturday night, which was somewhat uneventful because of a nine-car accident just 15 laps into the race. It turned the final two segments into something resembling a parade until a late push to catch Harvick.

Harvick threw a block on Biffle and Stewart, Joey Logano couldn’t get to the leaders and Matt Kenseth, who might have had the strongest car, faded late as Harvick rolled to the win. He led 40 of the 75 laps.

“I’m glad we got Speedweeks started off the right way,” he said.

The race was split into three segments and fans got to vote on the format. The result was 30 laps, 25 laps and then a 20-lap sprint to the finish.

But several big names were knocked out a mere 15 laps into the race. Stewart was running second when he cut across the front of Marcos Ambrose, making slight contact that turned Stewart sideways and required a save to keep from crashing. Traffic stacked up behind him, triggering a chain-reaction, nine-car crash that wiped out seven cars.

Taken out were defending race winner Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin from Joe Gibbs Racing, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson from Hendrick Motorsports, Mark Martin and Kurt Busch.

“I didn’t see much. I was just cruising along and I saw sparks in front of me — I knew that wasn’t good,” Johnson said.

It was a costly crash for Kurt Busch, who also wrecked in practice Friday and has two damaged race cars just two days into Speedweeks. His Furniture Row Racing team was getting assistance from Richard Childress Racing on car repairs to ensure Busch has enough in the fleet to get to the Daytona 500.

“We’re going to help them in any way we can,” Childress said. “We’ll probably have one of those cars back (Sunday), repaired. We got two or three more back at the shop.”

Stewart, who took responsibility for triggering the crash, went on to “win” the first segment.

“I made a move for the lead and probably was a little anxious too early,” Stewart said of his first segment gaffe.

Fans then voted for the drivers to make a four-tire change during a pit stop between the first and second segment, and it was largely Harvick’s race from there. He dominated the final two segments, and held off challenges from Stewart and Biffle on the final lap to win in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.

It’s a strong opener to what’s going to be Harvick’s final year with RCR. He’s already signed on to drive for Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014.

“It’s about winning races,” Harvick said. “The politics and everything are one thing, but when we get to the race track it’s about sitting in this race car making it as fast as it will go. And those (RCR) guys, they don’t care about anything but winning and wanting to do good, so we owe it to them and everybody at (sponsor) Budweiser.”

Budweiser was the longtime sponsor of the race, which was called the Budweiser Shootout until series sponsor Sprint took over the rights this year.

Harvick broke his engine trying to do a celebratory burnout, and his car had to be pushed to Victory Lane.

Biffle finished second and Logano was third in his Penske Racing debut. Stewart was fourth and Kenseth fifth in his Joe Gibbs Racing debut.

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The 30-year-old Stewart-Haas Racing driver topped the second Sprint Cup practice with a fast lap of 196.220 mph, raising the possibility of her becoming on Sunday the first female to win the pole for the Daytona 500 on Feb. 24.

Patrick’s lap was eight-tenths of a second faster than Joey Logano’s top lap of 195.410 mph in the morning session.

“I suppose being the fastest going into qualifying is as good as you can hope for,” said Patrick, who was third-fastest in the morning session. “Everything that we do is to make sure we do whatever we can to be on the pole. That’s what we all are shooting for.

“But tomorrow is a whole other day. You’ve got to hope the weather stays very consistent.”

The possibility of winning the pole made Patrick’s relationship with fellow Sprint Cup rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr., which has dominated headlines since she arrived here, secondary for the time being.

“Well, I have always felt in my career that when things go well on the track, the media responds to it,” Patrick said. “Make sure you write about how good the crew is that made this car and the last car that was really fast [at testing], and how strong the Hendrick [Motorsports] engine is.

“That’s really important at Daytona. Here at Daytona and Talladega, it’s very much about the potential of the car and the engine.”

Stenhouse posted the 24th-fastest time in the second practice and 15th in the first.

But Saturday wasn’t about Stenhouse or Patrick. It was about how fast crew chief Tony Gibson and everyone at SHR made her No. 10 Chevrolet, which also was fast here during a January test.

Patrick said this is not the same car.

“This other car was really good in the wind tunnel, so we brought it,” she said. “You always hope the numbers from the wind tunnel translate to the track, and it did.

“That’s kind of the way it’s gone for us at Daytona. Everything we think is going to work a certain way works the way it is expected to, and that’s not always the case.”

Patrick never has started on the pole in a Sprint Cup race. Her best start in 10 races last season was 23rd at Atlanta. She qualified 29th for the Daytona 500 and finished 38th, 64 laps behind winner Matt Kenseth.

Patrick’s best start in the Nationwide Series, in which she competed full time last year, was first last season at Daytona. She finished 38th in that race.

The best start in the 500 for a woman was 18th by Janet Guthrie in 1980. Patrick hopes to change that.

“It would be really nice,” Patrick said of winning the 500 pole. “It’s a very big pole of all of them in the year for attention, especially for [sponsor] GoDaddy, who is on the car. There are other races throughout the year that as a driver you feel more pleased or proud of yourself to get, but this one is a whole team effort.”

Team owner Rick Hendrick, whose organization supplies engines to Stewart-Haas Racing, said he’d “love to see her on the pole.”

“She’s magical,” he said. “You look at the Super Bowl, and she’s all over the Super Bowl. She’s a good little driver and she does a lot for our sport. It would really be special if she could be on the front row. It would be special. It never happened before, so that would be cool.”

Richard Petty, NASCAR’s all-time winner who once said women didn’t belong in the garage, agreed with Hendrick.

“From a [public relations] standpoint, it would be great,” he said. “What it does, it puts us in a different arena because people will pick up on it that don’t usually pick up on the race.”

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