Kevin Harvick passes Martin Truex Jr. with one lap to go to claim the checkered flag at the KC Masterpiece 400 Saturday night.

Kevin Harvick just keeps on rolling. Saturday night Harvick won his fifth Cup Series race of the still young season by surging past Martin Truex Jr. after a late race restart due to a multi-car wreck on lap 253. The win is his third career victory at Kansas Speedway, tying him with Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon for the most ever at this track.

Harvick is the first driver in NASCAR Cup Series history to win five of the season's first twelve races.

"Well, I think this weekend shows really how good the race team is.," Harvick said. "Everything didn’t go exactly smooth, and everybody just kept a good demeanor about things and kept calm and kept working through things. The same thing tonight. Everybody just kept working through trying to make the car better, and we were able to wind up in Victory Lane. Those are the days that you just grind it out."

Martin Truex Jr., who finished runner-up behind Harvick, used pit strategy to nearly steal the win. He stayed on the track after a caution flag on lap 248 to move up into second place. After another late race caution flag, he restarted the race in the lead with eight laps remaining and quickly pulled away from the field. It seemed he was on his way to his third straight victory at Kansas Speedway when his car tightened up.

"I thought with five to go, we were going to be in good shape," Truex said. "We were running some really fast lap times and actually pulling away, and then actually the switch flipped and I got tight and started shaking the right front tire, and I knew I was in trouble."

Harvick, whose nickname is "The Closer" for a reason, was able to track Truex down and pass him right before entering the final lap.

Harvick's Team Penske teammate Joey Logano finished in third place, but all he could do was watch Harvick and Truex fight for the win.

"Kevin was ripping there with the new tires at the end. He was the fastest," Logano said. "My only shot was those guys (Harvick and Truex) wrecking each other and they’re too good for that."

Kyle Larson took fourth place, but it was a disappointing finish for the No.42. After being moved to the back of the field to start the race because of a necessary tire change after qualifying, Larson clearly had the fastest car as he roared to the lead by lap 130. He went on to lead 101 of the next 118 laps, but was hit by Ryan Blaney and forced to pit with rear fender damage. A mistake by his tire changer forced him to re-pit after he came back on the track, effectively ending his chances of winning.

"I hate that we didn’t turn today into a win,” Larson said, "but it's satisfying to see how much speed our car had tonight, and good to show Chevy has some speed, at least the 42 team."

Larson's little dig at Chevrolet wasn't without merit, Chase Elliott was the next highest finishing Chevy driver at twelfth. Elliott said "Yeah, just scratching and clawing to run mediocre. We have a lot of work to do."

Denny Hamlin used pit strategy and track position to finish in fifth place despite not having a very strong car.

"I thought it was average," Hamlin said. "It felt balanced on the short run, and I lost the balance there toward the middle and end of the race. We optimized our finish. I certainly don’t think we had a fifth-place car, but we just did a good job with the track position there. Got a good finish out of it."

Paul Menard, Erik Jones, Kurt Busch, Aric Almirola and Kyle Busch round out the top 10.

Ryan Blaney was the winner of stage one, while Kyle Larson won stage two. Each driver earned a bonus point for the postseason for the win.

Click here for full race results.

Kyle Busch continues to lead the NASCAR driver point standings. He is followed by Joey Logano, who cut his deficit behind Busch from 22 to 12 points. Kevin Harvick sits in third, 19 points behind Busch. Brad Keselowski is a distant fourth, 107 points behind Busch.

You can see the updated Driver's Points Standings here.

Next Saturday night is the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina.

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_{Photo credits: Balaji CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons}

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_{Author: @chops316
Editor: @liberty-minded}

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