Harvick races to his first win of ’19

Kevin Harvick LOUDON, N.H. — raced to his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season Sunday, winning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the second straight year.

Harvick held off Denny Hamlin by 0.210 seconds after the two made contact coming out of the final turn. Harvick won for the 46th time and the first since November at Texas.

Harvick led the final 41 laps in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. He has four victories at the mile oval to tie the record set by Jeff Burton.

Hamlin led for 113 laps, but could not catch Harvick after pitting on a caution after Kyle Larson blew a tire on the 265th lap.

Aric Almirola picked up his first stage NASCAR Cup win of the year by taking the second stage.

Almirola led the last 10 laps of the stage, which was interrupted by two cautions and a wreck that knocked Ricky Stenhouse Jr. out of the race after 135 laps.

Joey Logano took second in the stage and Ryan Newman was third, giving Ford a sweep of the top three spots in Stage 2.

Kyle Busch won the first stage of the race.

Busch started second and led the pack in his No. 18 Toyota for 61 of the 75 laps to claim the 10 bonus points for winning the opening stage.

Erik Jones, Busch’s teammate with Joe Gibbs Racing, was second, Almirola was third and Clint Bowyer took fourth in the stage. Pole sitter Brad Keselowski finished fifth.

Busch’s stage win was his seventh of the season, tying him with Cup Series points leader Logano for the most this season.

The only caution in the first stage came after Austin Dillon bumped the wall on the 45th lap.

NASCAR paid tribute to crew chief Nick Harrison, who died overnight after Saturday’s Xfinity Series race.