Harvick aims to put brakes on slide

Kevin Harvick enjoys racing at Infineon Raceway here because it offers the chance to see family and friends in his hometown of Bakersfield.

But there’s another opportunity the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver hopes to exploit in today’s Toyota/Save Mart 350: ending the worst dry spell of his nine-year Cup career.Harvick, who drives for Richard Childress Racing, has gone 86 points races without a victory since his Daytona 500 win in 2007, when he nipped Mark Martin in a photo finish.

Harvick has only two top-10 finishes in the No. 29 Chevrolet through the season’s first 15 races, and he’s 23rd in the Cup point standings.

That makes him a longshot to qualify for NASCAR’s Chase for the Cup, in which the top dozen drivers in points after 26 races compete for the championship in the season’s final 10 races. Harvick finished fourth in last year’s Chase.

The entire four-car Childress team is struggling this season to stay competitive with the top teams of Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing.

Harvick teammate Jeff Burton is 12th in points, Clint Bowyer is 16th and Casey Mears, another Bakersfield native, is 21st.

And to hear Harvick and other team members tell it, no quick fix is on the horizon.

“Wouldn’t you be frustrated?” Harvick said. “You go from being competitive and being in the Chase every year to not being able to get out of your own way.”

In addition, Harvick and his wife, DeLana -- who own a team that competes in NASCAR’s second-level Nationwide and Camping World Truck series -- recently learned they were among the NASCAR teams losing financial support from General Motors, which is in bankruptcy reorganization.

Harvick, 33, starts 16th today on the 10-turn, 1.99-mile Infineon road course, where he has a mixed record. Although he finished second in 2007, that was his only top-10 finish here in the last five years.

“This is a race that you feel like you should be in the top five,” he said. “Our road-race test went as good as it’s ever gone in the past.”

But then it’s back to NASCAR’s conventional oval tracks, where Harvick has led only a paltry nine laps this year.

The problems were evident early in the season, and team owner Richard Childress swapped the Harvick and Mears crews in April in hopes of turning things around. It’s had little effect.

Harvick’s frustration doesn’t surprise Burton.

“I wouldn’t say he’s freaking out” about the season, but Harvick has “had a year to this point he would rather forget,” Burton said. “He’s used to contending for wins and being fairly secure in the Chase. This year none of us have been able to do that.”

The problem, according to Burton, Harvick and other team members, is not one of raw horsepower but rather that the Childress cars aren’t racing through the corners to keep pace with the leaders.

“We have a multitude of problems that need to be addressed,” and they “all carry over to how fast the cars are on the track,” Harvick said without being more specific.

Burton said “we didn’t do a good job this past fall and this winter” in developing the cars for 2009 and “the record shows it. We didn’t prepare properly and so we’re behind.”

Harvick was the driver Childress tapped to replace the legendary Dale Earnhardt after Earnhardt died in 2001. Childress had won six championships with Earnhardt.

Asked about Harvick’s frustration, Childress said “all of us are holding up very well under the conditions. RCR -- Richard Childress -- is not used to these situations, either.

“We just got to all keep working.”

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Bringing up the rear

Riverside’s David Gilliland and Marcus Ambrose must start at the rear of the 43-car field in backup cars today after problems in practice Saturday.

Gilliland, who finished second in last year’s race, crashed into John Andretti in a pit-road mishap, and Ambrose blew an engine.

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james.peltz@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Toyota/Save Mart 350

Site: Sonoma, Calif.

Schedule: Today, race, 2 p.m. (TNT, 12:30-5:30 p.m.)

Track: Infineon Raceway (road course, 1.99 miles).

Race distance: 218.9 miles, 110 laps.

Last week: Mark Martin won for the third time this year, saving just enough gas at Michigan International Speedway. Jimmie Johnson dominated most of the race but ran out of fuel with two laps to go, giving the lead to Greg Biffle, who then ran out of gas on the final lap. The 50-year-old Martin has 38 career Cup victories.

Next race: Lenox Industrial Tools 301, June 28, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loudon, N.H.

-- Associated Press