Harvick Edges Kahne

Taking advantage of a late crash by the leaders, Kevin Harvick outraced Kasey Kahne to the checkered flag Saturday in the Sam’s Town 300 NASCAR Busch Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The largest crowd to watch a Busch race at the seven-year-old track -- announced as 105,000 -- saw Matt Kenseth dominate the second half of the 200-lap race before colliding with Johnny Sauter and Dave Blaney while trying to regain the lead from Sauter.

After two restarts due to confusion among NASCAR officials as to the order of cars on the track, Kenseth was in the lead when the green flag came out. Damage to the right of his Dodge, however, prevented him from holding off the challenge of Harvick’s Chevrolet. The Nextel Cup driver from Bakersfield took over on lap 187 and led the rest of the way.

“We were fortunate with our pit stops,” Harvick said. “We were in the right spot at the right time. When Kenseth got bumped, I could see he had some real damage to the right side, so I decided to get past him as quickly as possible and put some distance between myself and the other guys.”

David Stremme was third in a Dodge, with Michael Waltrip a fast-finishing fourth in a Chevrolet after having fallen three laps back of the leader at one point.

Harvick earned $83,685 for the win, his 12th in the Busch series.

-- Shav Glick

*

Six-time series champion Michael Schumacher won his fourth Australian Grand Prix title, leading teammate Rubens Barrichello in a 1-2 finish for Ferraris in the season-opening Formula One race at Melbourne.

Schumacher led from the start and finished 13.6 seconds ahead of Barrichello.

In what seemed to be a separate race for third place among the other nine teams, Fernando Alonso earned his fifth podium finish for Renault.

He was 34.6 seconds behind in third.

McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen, second in the 2003 drivers’ standings and a podium finisher in the first race at Melbourne last year, was first out when a damaged water pump caused him to spin off the track on the ninth lap.