Harvick

JOLIET, Ill. -- Jeff Gordon called it a "pretty stupid move, in my opinion."

To that, Kevin Harvick replied with dripping sarcasm, "Jeff Gordon got second. Maybe if he'd been a little braver, he might have won. He thinks it's a stupid move, but I think it's pretty cool."

The verdict: Harvick not only won Sunday's Tropicana 400 for the second consecutive year, he also won the abbreviated war of words with runner-up Gordon. And with Johnny Sauter winning Saturday's Busch Series Tropicana Twister 300 event, it was a total TKO of a weekend for Richard Childress Racing.

How Harvick successfully defended his title from last year is a unique story in itself. Fighting for position on lap 198, Harvick dipped low past Kurt Busch on the Turn 1 apron. But with relatively fresh tires, combined with getting into some on-track dirt and debris, Harvick tried valiantly to retain control of his No. 29 Chevrolet, but ultimately wound up spinning out and tearing up a substantial amount of grass heading into Turn 2.

"The race car was so fast and the tires were fresh, so I was trying to get everything I could," said Harvick, who won with an average speed of 136.832 mph. "I thought that Kurt (Busch) had somebody on the outside of him, and when I came back up, there wasn't a whole lot of room to go. When you come up off the apron, you need to go straight up. I tried to go into the corner and up on the racetrack all at once, and it just felt like somebody popped both of our rear tires.

"I just lost it and was fortunate nobody hit us, but dang, you can't knock us for trying."

While Gordon earned his best finish since Talladega in April (was also second in that event), and lauded Harvick's victory at points, he also mocked the infamous spin.

"It's funny how fortunate it can be for some and not for others," said Gordon, who finished .812 of a second behind Harvick. "It was a pretty stupid move, in my opinion.

"(Harvick) clearly went underneath him and never touched anybody, it's just there wasn't any grip down there and he spun out. I don't know how the cars wrecked behind him, if he caused that or what happened there."

At that point, Harvick corrected his wayward car and got back onto the track, but not before two trailing drivers, Jerry Nadeau and Hut Stricklin, got caught up in a wreck that immediately brought out the yellow caution flag. As a result, Harvick barely lost any ground (dropping only three spots to 12th place), collected his wits and promptly went into the pits at the end of that lap.

"I've gotta give him some credit, not too many guys could have straightened it out," Gordon remarked.

It was that spin, coupled with the pit stop, that gave Harvick just enough momentum -- not to mention precious fuel -- to go the rest of the way on his final tank of fuel and win the race.

How close was it? Harvick ran out of gas after doing a celebratory burnout on the front stretch, but before he could motor into Victory Lane. His car had to be pushed into the celebration of his third career Winston Cup win, and the first since his triumph in suburban Chicago last year, a streak of 34 starts.

"Finally, I think we got a little luck on our side," Harvick said. "We got a little greedy with our fast race car and spun the thing out, and came back. ... It was pretty much a matter of track position for us, and once we got it, it was lights out."

Harvick became the 13th different driver to win a Winston Cup race this season, is the eighth different winner in the last eight events, and led a total of 29 laps, including the final 25 as he piloted his way toward victory.

"We've had a good month, didn't have a lot of the finishes to show for it, but the momentum has been building, and the chemistry between myself and Gil (new crew chief Gil Martin, who switched jobs and teams nearly a month ago with Harvick's former crew chief Kevin Hamlin) and all the guys is really strong. There are a lot of guys like me that haven't won a lot of races, and we're all hungry to win and prove everybody wrong. I think we've accomplished all those goals and it's pretty much fast-forward from here."

The second-place finish for Gordon, meanwhile, could be just what the defending champ needs as the Cup season reaches its true midpoint.

"It was a good run for us," Gordon said. "We would have liked to win, but when we got up behind (Harvick), we had a big push and I couldn't catch him.

"I'm really excited about the second half (of the season). We're right in the hunt for the championship. We're right in it. As far as Sterling, as great as he was in the first part of the season, it seems like the middle part he hasn't been as good. There's no telling what this championship race will be like."

As for the Winston Cup standings, points leader Sterling Marlin, who finished 16th Sunday, saw his lead grow even more precariously smaller over second-place Mark Martin (finished ninth), who trails Marlin by just 49 points heading into next weekend's race in New Hampshire. Jimmie Johnson (finished fourth) remains in third position, Gordon moves up from fifth to fourth (only 95 points behind Marlin), Tony Stewart (finished third) jumps from seventh to fifth and Rusty Wallace (finished 25th) drops from fourth to sixth.

Harvick, meanwhile, improves marginally despite the win, jumping from 30th place to 28th in the standings. Yet, as happy as he was at Sunday's outcome, given the problems he's had most of this season, he admittedly started to have some self-doubt that he would end up as the race winner.

"I was just thinking (on the last lap as he headed towards the checkered flag) 'Is the tire going to go flat, is the motor going to blow up, am I going to spin it out?' I spun it out once. What's going to go wrong now? Everything's gone so good all day, and everything went right.

"I think there's a lot of people that thought they had us beat down and kicked up and buried in the grave and looking for somewhere to fill the hole at RCR. We've been sitting back for a couple of months just watching and writing and remembering, just putting our heads down and letting our race car do the talking.

"If we can make it through the last year at RCR, we can make it through anything. This is a little speed bump going through the parking lot at 15 mph."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.