CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY NOTEBOOK: PALMDALE'S HARVICK WINS.

Byline: Steve Ramirez San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Don't look now, but Kevin Harvick is on a roll.

The Palmdale resident won for the second time in three races Saturday after dominating the NASCAR Winston West California 200 at California Speedway.

Rookie Austin Cameron finished second, while points-leader Sean Woodside of Saugus was third.

``We have a new crew chief (John McQueen),'' said Harvick, who overcame two late cautions to beat Cameron to the stripe by 1.15 seconds. ``He has rejuvenated everyone on the team, and it's really made a difference the past two or three races.

``Today, everything was perfect. We had a few problems early, but we came through. We had our stuff today.''

Harvick's only setback came early, when he suffered a lose spark-plug wire and gave up the lead to Woodside following a restart on lap 17.

``It would be a lot easier if I didn't have to race against Harvick,'' said Woodside, who led laps 19-23 before being overtaken by Cameron. ``He could run with anybody. We were battling back and forth, but (Cameron) and Harvick were just too strong.''

Harvick, who never dropped lower than fifth, retook the lead on lap 61 and increased his advantage to 6.44 seconds before the caution flag was waved on lap 75 for debris.

``I just kept telling myself to be patient and stay in line (on the restart),'' Harvick said. ``We had the car today and we were OK, as long as I didn't make a mistake.'' Which Harvick proved once again by staying ahead of Cameron on the restart. He pushed his advantage to 1.14 seconds before rookie Keiichi Tsuchiya brought out another caution when he slammed into the outside wall of turn 2 on lap 89.

Harvick was once again up to the task, taking the green flag by .14 seconds on lap 95 and increasing it to .67 on lap 98 before winning by 1.15.

I'll remember Ernie: Ron Hornaday Jr. was not pleased by what he said was a bit of trickery by Winston Cup driver Ernie Irvan, who made a guest appearance and took second place in Saturday's Craftsman Truck No Fear 200. Hornaday was in second and Irvan in third, and both were chasing race leader Jack Sprague when Hornaday said Irvan spoke to him on the radio.

``He said, `Why don't we get together and go get the 24 car (Sprague),' '' Hornaday said.

So, thinking Irvan was going to fall in behind him and give him an aerodynamic push toward Sprague, Hornaday said he moved to the outside. When he did, Irvan zipped past him down low and went after Sprague on his own.

``He hung me out to dry,'' Hornaday said. ``I'm lucky I didn't lose another place in the deal. I'm not very happy about it, either. I'm going to be running some Winston Cup races later this year and he'd better not count on getting any help from me.''

Irvan contested Hornaday's account of what happened.

``He was motioning at me to go with him, but what am I supposed to do? I don't understand hand signals.

``When I'm on the race track, I'm out there to race. Ron Hornaday doesn't sign my paycheck. And I don't sign his.''

Mac attack: Busch racer Bobby Hillin's car is partly sponsored by a group of six major-league baseball players that includes Mark McGwire.

In tribute to McGwire, Hillin's team has a place on the car where they record the number of homers McGwire has hit so far this season.

Between practices Saturday, the team had McGwire's son Matthew on hand as they changed the number to 42.

Double duty: Four drivers raced in both the Craftsman Truck No Fear 200 and the Winston West California 200 Saturday.

The four and how they fared, with the truck results first:

Kevin Harvick, 30th and first; former NFL coach Jerry Glanville, 26th and 21st; Lance Norick, 27th and seventh; and Jay Sauter, 24th and ninth.

- Daily News Staff Writer Bill Schlotter contributed to this story.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO Matthew McGwire, son of St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire, updates his dad's home-run total on the car he sponsors.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News