JOLIET, Ill. -- OK, that's it. Get the bulldozers and the jackhammers ready.

If Kevin Harvick wins again Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway, they might as well close the place down and build a new race track.

For if Harvick and the No. 29 Chevrolet take the checkered flag this weekend in the Tropicana 400, it'll be three-out-of-three for the Bakersfield, Calif., native at the 1.5-mile oval in suburban Chicago, the first time in NASCAR history that a driver has ever won three races in a row at a new track.

Is it any wonder that Harvick has eagerly been looking forward to coming back to the Windy City in search of a three-peat this Sunday, having had race day circled on his calendar for several months?

"Oh, yeah. You put a big red circle around it, especially after you've won there the last two years," Harvick said. "There are a lot of race tracks on the schedule where we've had a lot of success and expect to have more success. There are also a few on there that sometimes I wish they'd just fill them up with water. But that's what makes our schedule so unique. If there wasn't a racetrack that I didn't like on the schedule, I'd probably be lying to you."

It's gotta be the ovals

What is it about 1.5-mile ovals that has caused some drivers to excel right off the bat? Is it the similar layout, the single-groove racing in the first couple of years or nothing more than lady luck? Here's a list of drivers who've dominated the newest 1.5-mile tracks -- those that have opened in the last seven years -- on the Winston Cup circuit: Chicagoland Speedway (first Cup race in 2001): Kevin Harvick is unbeaten, having won in 2001 and 2002. Kansas Speedway (first Cup race in 2001): Jeff Gordon is unbeaten, having won in 2001 and 2002. Homestead-Miami Speedway (first Winston Cup race in 1999): Tony Stewart won the first two races in 1999 and 2000, and he clinched the Winston Cup championship there last season (despite finishing 18th). Las Vegas Motor Speedway (first Cup race in 1998): Although Mark Martin won the inaugural Cup event there, Jeff Burton went on to win the next two races in 1999 and 2000. Texas Motor Speedway (first Cup race in 1997): Seven winners in as many starts: Ryan Newman (2003), Matt Kenseth (2002), Dale Jarrett (2001), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2000), Terry Labonte (1999), Mark Martin (1998) and Jeff Burton (1997).

There's no special magic to explain Harvick's dominance at the three-year-old Chicagoland Speedway. Rather, like a pair of old, broken-in shoes, the facility just accommodates his driving talent very well.

"From the first time we unloaded, it's just been one of those places that fits my driving style," Harvick said. "The first year that the track opened, (former Richard Childress Racing teammate) Jeff Green and Todd (Berrier, who was Green's crew chief at the time; now he's Harvick's crew chief) went up there and had a really good test.

"Luckily, everything transferred over into everything that I like in a race car. We went back (to Chicagoland) this year and tried all the stuff that we've had for the last two years and it was still relatively good. By the end of the test, everything on the car was completely different than it had been the last two years. We'll probably attribute most of that to the new body styles of the Chevrolets. Hopefully, we can go back and at least get a solid top-5 out of the weekend and hopefully have a chance to defend our last two wins."

With his two wins at Chicagoland, Harvick is part of an elite group of four drivers who have won the first two events at a racetrack. Tony Stewart did so at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway in 1999 and 2000; Jeff Gordon has won both races at Kansas Speedway (2001 and 2002); and legendary A.J. Foyt won at Ontario in 1971 and 1972.

"To be lumped in that one small category with all those guys' names is pretty neat for me," Harvick said. "Hopefully we can carry it over from two wins to three.

"All I've heard from people in Chicago is that it's a three-peat town (as the NBA's Chicago Bulls proved by three-peating twice in the 1990s). So I'm going with that."

Try as he might, 27-year-old Harvick is unable to find an easy explanation for his success in Chicago. But he doesn't let that stop him from enjoying it.

"I wish I knew why it's just one of those tracks that fits my style," he said. "I can't really explain it. But I know the characteristics of the race car are one reason that I've had success there."

Harvick is ranked eighth in the Winston Cup standings coming into Sunday's race. While he's still searching for his first win of the 2003 season, he has three top-5 and six top-10 finishes in the season's first 17 races.

That's a far cry from the struggles he endured much of last season in his sophomore Winston Cup effort. After an outstanding award-winning season as a rookie in 2001, admirably replacing the late Dale Earnhardt in the GM Goodwrench Chevy, Harvick experienced one of the worst sophomore slumps the Cup series has seen in years.

	Kevin Harvick managed to win the 2002 Tropicana 400 despite spinning out.

But he has bounced back in 2003. And, though he's a distant 502 points behind series leader Matt Kenseth, with 19 races still remaining, there's plenty of time for Harvick not only to notch a few wins but also to mount a serious challenge for the championship.

"If we can make up some points here in the next few weeks, our ultimate goal is to win a Winston Cup championship," Harvick said. "At the beginning of the year, we really struggled with our (new) bodies, and we've got all that turned around now.

"The thing we have to do now is just what we've been doing for the past couple of weeks. We need to lead laps and run in the top-10 and hopefully finish in the top-5 and have a chance to win the race. Right now, everybody is so positive and the cars are running good. That does more for everybody and for myself than anything else. You're always going to have a weakness at certain racetracks or certain points in the races. But it's how you overcome those things that make you succeed."

Harvick has been succeeding quite well this season, thank you very much. After a fourth-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500, he dipped to 18th in the standings after Darlington (S.C.). But from that point, he has been on a roll, finishing second at Talladega, third at Sonoma, sixth at Richmond and ninth last week at Daytona.

After being ranked as high as sixth in the Cup standings after Martinsville (Va.), Harvick fell back to 11th after Michigan. But he's back up to eighth-place heading into this weekend, and he's riding the momentum.

If you think he's confident heading to a place he has owned the last two years, you'd be quite right.

"We pretty much go into the weekend thinking we'll have a great qualifying effort and that we'll have a chance of winning the race," Harvick said. "That's just the mind-set you have going to a place where you've had so much success.

"It's the same mind-set we had going into Daytona. We expected to have a chance to sit on the pole and have a chance to win the race. There are a lot of circumstances that can come into play.

"Last year we had a fast car and the circumstances worked in our favor (at Chicago). When we get there, we expect to unload off the trailer and set a good lap right off the bat. That's a good feeling going into a weekend, that you expect to go out and have success."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at Motorsportwriter@Yahoo.com.