Harvick hardly secure

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Daytona 500 winner says spot in Chase still not a sure thing

Atlanta Kevin Harvick was at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Tuesday for the first installment of a two-day Goodyear tire test, but his greatest concern is securing his spot in the Chase for the Nextel Cup and ratcheting up his team's performance in the 10 "playoff" races.

Harvick started the season strong, winning the Daytona 500 and the Nextel All-Star Challenge, but he has hit a rough spot. After contending for the win and finishing seventh at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he has had four straight finishes of 15th or worse and hasn't led a lap in that span.With two races left before the start of the Chase, he's 10th in points, just nine markers ahead of Kurt Busch, who holds the 12th and final spot. He was seventh after Indy.

While reporters at Atlanta Motor Speedway were looking ahead to the Chase in their questions for Harvick, he cautioned that his spot is anything but secure, even though he's 167 points ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who sits 13th in the standings.

"We're not locked in," Harvick said. "We just have to do what we've been doing, get some decent finishes. Nothing has been going our way like we want to the last few weeks."

For many in NASCAR, the focus now is on which driver or driver's performance will peak in the Chase. Harvick knows that's what his team needs to do.

"We'd better because we haven't peaked in the last month," he said. "We went through a stretch there at the beginning of the summer where everything was going really good, but now it seems like every week something happens, we get caught up in something."

He pointed out that last year his team peaked at the start of the Chase, winning both the final race of the regular season at Richmond and the first playoff race at Loudon, N.H., but blew an engine the next week at Dover and lost momentum.

"We went into the first race and peaked to our maximum and then went and had a few bad weeks after that," he said.

"Hopefully we can gain that momentum at the right time." KEYS TO CALIFORNIA

California Speedway is a grueling 2-mile track that takes a toll on engines. The track offers many of the same characteristics as Michigan International Speedway, but this race has an additional 100 miles. • Engines: Engine tuners may need to be on the conservative side this weekend. The track has a history of causing engine troubles. • Pit strategy: Crew chiefs must be aware of track position and fuel mileage. The race can be won or lost by a crew chief's decision of when to pit and what adjustments to make. • Closers: Teams must put themselves in position to make a move in the closing stages of the race.

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