His nickname is "Happy Harvick," a moniker earned early in his career when things rarely went wrong.
But when the wins became fewer and far between at NASCAR's top level, the name seemed to be more of a sarcastic reference to Kevin Harvick's perpetual scowl.
Not anymore. Not even close.
With wins in his last three races, including Saturday night's Nextel Cup victory that gave him a weekend sweep at Phoenix International Raceway, Harvick is indeed happy again.
"Everything is good right now," he said. "From my personal life, to life on the race track."
Harvick snapped his 38-race winless streak in the Cup series by passing Greg Biffle with 10 laps to go in the desert. Up until the moment Harvick took the lead, he had been off the radar -- he hadn't led a lap, settling in for what appeared to be a non-eventful top-10 finish.
But when it was time to race hard, he pounced. Harvick blew past Biffle, then opened up such a wide lead he was practically able to coast his Chevrolet home.
Good thing, too. Harvick was worried he'd run out of gas -- it happened to him last year in Phoenix on the final lap when he was running fourth. Not this time, though. While he was conserving fuel, Biffle and Mark Martin (who combined to lead 262 of the 312 laps) both ran out of gas trying to chase Harvick down.
Crew chief Todd Berrier told Harvick about the troubles behind him, and assured him he had nothing to worry about.
"We always worry about running out of gas, but once we were able to get out in front and in clean air, and saw how far we were able to pull away," Harvick explained. "I am telling you, I let off ... and Todd told me it was all good by a half a lap."
Harvick won last week's Busch Series race in Nashville, Tennessee, then made it back-to-back Busch victories Friday night in Phoenix to open up a 289-point lead in the standings.
He carried that momentum into Saturday night and grabbed the second weekend sweep of his career. That moved him to eighth in the Cup standings, 174 points behind leader Matt Kenseth.
Ferrari finally won a competitive race but its Formula One rivals aren't convinced the Prancing Horse has what it takes for the championship yet.
Michael Schumacher held off Fernando Alonso in a long duel at the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday for his first victory in 13 races. Alonso's car was faster, though, and Schumacher's win was largely attributed to Imola's narrow track.
"At a normal circuit we could have won but this is Imola where overtaking is almost impossible," Alonso said. "We also have to remember that Ferrari had a very bad season last year, but here at Imola they were one second quicker than us."
The actual difference, officially, was two seconds.
Schumacher started from his record 66th pole five cars ahead of Alonso's Renault. By the 35th lap, Alonso was on Schumacher's tail and remained there for the rest of the 62-lap race. McLaren's Juan Pablo Montoya was third, 15.8 seconds back.
"Imola is quite a different circuit so we will find out in the next two or three races who the quick cars are in 2006," Alonso said.
Renault traditionally struggles at Imola and even Schumacher acknowledged his seventh win there -- another record -- should be taken in perspective.
"[Renault] feel less competitive here than elsewhere," the German said. "We were very competitive except at one point when I think something was wrong with the car. I think we should be pretty good from now on. It's honestly getting very close between the top teams."
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