SONOMA, Calif. -- Kevin Harvick maybe needed a little kick in the butt to get his road-course game in gear for 110 laps Sunday at Sonoma Raceway.
Many on the outside would think that with five top-5s in the first 15 races of 2017, that would serve as enough motivation for him to finally break into the win column, no matter the race track.
But the sometimes-ornery Harvick wasn't stressing out over a winless 2017. He had said in the weeks leading into the season that the switch from Chevrolet to Ford would have its hiccups. In a sport in which the details produce the speed that makes the difference between top-5s and wins, he knew that finding that performance would take time.
What really got Harvick thinking about his performance on a road course came a few months ago when NASCAR seriously started to consider putting the new Charlotte road course as part of the playoffs. He knew then -- NASCAR made it official when it released the schedule last month -- that he had to look at road courses more than just as two regular-season races in a year.
"When you talk about it being in the Chase, you've got to have it right," Harvick said, using the former name of NASCAR's playoffs. "I think, for me, that was kind of like, 'All right, you've got to do something yourself to get better.' ... The most important thing is to never take for granted that you have to try to expand your knowledge and keep an open mind to making things better."
So Harvick decided to run the regional K&N Pro Series West race Saturday at Sonoma, winning that event. He also will compete in the Xfinity race in August at Watkins Glen.
That extra focus -- and, OK, probably a little motivation from a 20-race winless streak -- contributed to Harvick's leading 24 laps and earning the 36th win of his NASCAR Cup career Sunday. He had a comfortable lead on SHR teammate Clint Bowyer when the caution came out on the final lap.
"We all expected that Kevin would have got it sooner than this, but there's just been some bad luck, some different venues that he's been really, really strong at that we just had some weird and bad luck that have crept into his program," Stewart-Haas Racing team co-owner Tony Stewart said.
It was a big win for SHR, which opened the season with Kurt Busch's triumph in the Daytona 500 but has performed good but not great since then. Harvick sits third in the points, Bowyer 11th, Busch 14th and Danica Patrick 28th.
All four drivers felt they had top-10 cars, and Harvick, Bowyer and Busch (seventh) proved it, while Patrick got collected in two accidents, neither of which arguably were not of her own doing, and still wound up 17th.
It certainly didn't hurt Harvick that Martin Truex Jr. had an engine failure that ended his day 24 laps prematurely. And it didn't hurt that NASCAR officials reined in their trigger finger on the caution light and didn't flip it for debris or spinning cars over the final 10 laps until a hard hit by Kasey Kahne on the final circuit around the 1.99-mile road course.
"It was interesting listening to some of the [Joe] Gibbs [Racing] drivers and the gamesmanship they were playing ... they pitted [while Harvick didn't in the final 30 laps] and came back out and then immediately started screaming [about] debris on the race track," said Stewart, who was critical of NASCAR for throwing a late debris caution at Michigan last week.
"I thought that was real convenient on their part. But it's gamesmanship, and they're smart, knowing how to try to play the game, but I'm glad NASCAR didn't bite on that one today."
With a mixture of happiness and relief, Stewart, Harvick and the team celebrated in Victory Lane. Winning always makes things easier, especially when handling the frustrations of just not knowing exactly how the Ford will react in certain situations and still learning software and all their tools.
"I had mixed emotions about how the year was going to go just because of the fact that we had a lot on our plate to switch over, and I think, as we started the year, we had good performance, and we went through a little bit of a spell where it wasn't as good as the first three or four weeks," Harvick said.
The past six weeks have been better, and Harvick said that is just part of the growing pains.
"It's just a big undertaking, and one day I think when we get done with this year, I think everybody will actually learn all the details of all the things that it took to get to this particular point," Harvick said.
Harvick doesn't presume that SHR has figured out all the details. He thinks more details -- and with them, more trophies -- are on the horizon.
"There's still a lot of room for growth," Harvick said. "There's still a lot of things we don't know about our cars that we learn on a weekly basis, and that's the fun part, is to know the upside potential to this whole deal. ... I feel like we have way more room to grow than most any team in the garage because there's so many new things for us and new people and still trying to work all the details out."