Kevin Harvick continues tribute to Dale Earnhardt Sr. after latest Atlanta win

Kevin Harvick celebrated his Atlanta win Sunday the same way he did his first one in 2001.

Despite now having 51 NASCAR Cup Series wins, Kevin Harvick won only his third race at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday. But he celebrated that victory the same way he did the first two.

Harvick dominated the end of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 to win his second race of the season after taking his first checkered flag of 2020 in May at Darlington Raceway at NASCAR’s first race back after a 10-week hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic. His 51st win breaks his tie on the all-time wins list with Junior Johnson and Ned Jarrett, and he now stands alone ranked No. 12.

And when Harvick completed 500.5 miles Sunday, he did a lap (in the opposite direction) at the 1.5-mile track while holding up three fingers out his window — a continued tribute to the late Dale Earnhardt Sr.

Harvick won his first Cup Series race at the Atlanta track back in 2001 just three races after he replaced Earnhardt, who tragically died on the last lap of the season-opening Daytona 500 that year. After that win, Harvick held his three fingers out the window to honor Earnhardt, who piloted the iconic No. 3 Chevrolet.

It took 17 years after Harvick’s first win at Atlanta for him to drive to Victory Lane again, but when he did at the beginning of the 2018 season, he celebrated again with his three-finger salute to Earnhardt.

Harvick — who now has a 48-point lead at the top of the driver standings over Joey Logano — said after the race:

“I didn’t get to show [the salute] very good a couple years ago with my gloves on, so I made sure I took my gloves off this year. Obviously, first win came for me here at Atlanta and this is just a race track that I’ve taken a liking to, and you always come back and have those memories. And now you want to celebrate everything that Dale Earnhardt did for this sport. To come here and be able to do that with wins and go to Victory Lane is pretty special.”

NASCAR has a totally redesigned schedule to try to have a full season amid the coronavirus pandemic. So the next Cup Series race is Wednesday at Martinsville Speedway at 7 p.m. ET on FS1.

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