Date:March 1, 2010

By: Ed Hinton (ESPN.com)

The clearest thing in Cup after only two races -- the restrictor-plate Daytona 500 and the unrestricted Auto Club 500 -- is that Richard Childress Racing is back.

Kevin Harvick has had the best car in both races, only to be beaten by breaks -- an insurmountable drafting line late at Daytona, and Jimmie Johnson's split second of luck in the pits at Fontana, Calif.

"I think the 29 [Harvick] has had a shot to win both races, for sure," RCR's Jeff Burton told reporters Sunday at Auto Club Speedway, after finishing third to Harvick's second. "I think the 29 by far, the first two races of the year, has been the best car."

Their remaining teammate, Clint Bowyer, finished eighth Sunday. Bowyer had the highest-finishing RCR car at Daytona, fourth, after Harvick got shuffled back in the draft at the end.

All three RCR cars led at times at Fontana.

Oh, and add the preseason Bud Shootout sprint at Daytona, which Harvick won.

The old NASCAR adage is that if you're consistently around at the end of races, strong enough, you'll break through to Victory Lane and go on to get your share of wins.

Now, clearly, "It's not [a matter of] catching up," Harvick said. "We did that. It's just getting in front of everybody else."

No reason to think one of them won't, as early as next Sunday at Las Vegas.

Their 2-3-8 finish Sunday, on top of their fourth (Bowyer), seventh (Harvick) and 11th (Burton) at Daytona, left all three in the top five in points -- Harvick first, Bowyer second and Burton fifth.

Told by TV reporters he's leading the points, Harvick deadpanned, "Oh. Great. Only 34 [points races] to go."

On the other hand, race winner Johnson professed to "hate being in a hole this early pointswise," 12th, mainly due to a bad run of flat tires at Daytona.

This time Johnson's luck turned 180 degrees: He pitted just moments before Brad Keselowski's spin brought out the race's final caution with 26 laps remaining.

After the restart with 20 to go, Harvick and Burton, even racing each other side by side at times, began to reel in Johnson. Harvick caught the leader, but scraped the wall after Johnson moved up to block him with four to go. From there, Harvick lost momentum with a crunched right-front fender and Johnson got away.

Johnson maintained he won because he and his team were both lucky and good.

"We were lucky today," he admitted. "But you don't get lucky and win four championships and 48 races [his career totals so far]."

The resurgence of RCR hasn't caught Johnson's branch of Hendrick Motorsports napping.

"We knew those guys were coming on strong towards the end of last year," said Johnson's crew chief, Chad Knaus. "They found some significant gains in the horsepower area. That's obvious. They definitely found some gains in the handling of their cars."

In turn, "We're doing everything we can at Hendrick Motorsports to continually evolve what it is we've got," Knaus said.

So if this season is to be a Chevrolet team runaway as last year was, it's shaping up as a duel, no longer dominated by Hendrick.

To see Ed Hinton’s complete article as it appears on ESPN.com, click here.