Kevin Harvick was untouchable in Saturday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at the Michigan International Speedway. He led a race-high 92 of 161 laps en route to his third straight August win there. It was also his 54th career NASCAR Cup Series triumph, tying him for 11th all-time with Lee Petty. But, five of those 54 wins have come this season. That’s why it’s no so shocking that he won Saturday’s first race of a twin bill in the Irish Hills this weekend.

Harvick, started third in his No. 4 Ford and it only took 23 laps before he found his way to the point. He now has eight straight top five finishes on the year to go along with four top two finishes in his last five starts at Michigan.

“You know, it’s just been a racetrack that fits our engine package, especially since we’ve come to Ford,” Harvick said of Michigan. “The Yates, Doug Yates and his group put a lot of effort into running well at this racetrack because for the Ford Motor Company they want that Heritage Trophy in their lobby, so it means a lot to the Ford Motor Company.

“Our race cars right now with this rules package and the way that the aero is and any other rules package for that matter have just been really, really fast at Michigan.  We come here expecting to be competitive for the win, and today was no different, and hopefully tomorrow is the same way.”

Speaking of Sunday’s Consumers Energy 400 (4:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN), Harvick will now have to start 20th by virtue of his win and that race being a top 20 invert of Saturday’s finishing order. Does this give everyone else equal ground on him?

“Yeah, you know, I think like I said earlier, Michigan has been a great racetrack for us and we look forward to coming here every time,” Harvick continued. “It has been a lot of fun for us.

“Starting 20th, I think it’s great.  I think our car is capable of passing people.  We just need to get as many as we can before that first stage and go from there.”

While starting position has mattered a lot at Michigan lately, I don’t think it will on Sunday. It didn’t matter in Pocono back at the end of June when Harvick and Denny Hamlin finished 1-2 on Saturday and 1-2 again on Sunday. Plus, Harvick says that the racing package and track surface is almost perfect now for Michigan to aid in more passing.

“Yeah, well, I think NASCAR did a really good job of making that third lane available so you had options as a driver to move your car around and really make things happen,” said Harvick. “I think getting that third lane right with the PJ1 really made Michigan and the race here, especially with this rules package, just way better from a driver standpoint. We’re getting close to having the races that everybody wants here. I thought today was a good race, and I think having multiple lanes is really what it’s all about.”

That’s not good news for Harvick’s competition. Second place finisher Brad Keselowski was happy with his car, but says Harvick was untouchable on Saturday.

“At no time did I think us or anyone else was better than the 4 (Harvick), said Keselowski.

While he has three straight top two finishes, Keselowski says that his car was as good if not better than everyone else’s minus Harvick.

“Oh, absolutely,” Keselowski continued on if his runner-up is encouraging still for Sunday’s race. “There’s a lot of cars that I thought we were pretty equal to, maybe a touch better, maybe a touch worse, depending on who you ask, and we beat all those guys.”

Keselowski, says that Harvick was equal to them in the corners, it’s just that despite having the same engine power, Harvick was just that much better on the straightaways.

Third place finisher Martin Truex Jr. overcame an early race tire problem from contact with Tyler Reddick, says that they have some ideas on how to make his car a little better for Sunday’s race. But, he doesn’t think the Toyota’s have what it takes to beat Harvick and the Ford’s due to the design of their cars. I mean there’s a reason Ford has won five straight at Michigan and Toyota has one win in their last 17 starts there.

“You know, I think we have some ideas of ways to help our car do the things we need it to do,” Truex said. “I don’t know that we can get all the way there to be honest with you.  Typically if you look at past history here with this package, those guys really excel on tracks like this where you need low drag and high horsepower and things like that.  They’ve got a really good combination at the tracks where you can get away with doing that.

“I would say that for us, it’s not been our strongest suit being these really fast tracks.  I think our cars are just inherently draggy and we pay the price a little bit more I think than most guys at the fast tracks.  I don’t know, we’ll see.  We’re going to try for sure and give it all we got.  I know everybody back at our shop works incredibly hard and does a lot of things to try to make us the best cars out there, and I think we’re really close.

“I think our car was just really, really fast today, and maybe not as fast as the 4, but pretty dang close, and I didn’t see anybody better.  If we can gain on it a little bit, maybe we can give them a run for their money tomorrow.”

His teammates agree. Denny Hamlin thought he had a second place car, but agreed with Keselowski that Harvick was just so much better on the straights.

“I thought we were kind of a second-place car. Once (Kevin Harvick) was leading there, we were able to stay pretty close to him,” Hamlin said. “He was just so much faster down the straightaway than we were. I’m not sure that we would have been able to do much with him.

“We were certainly fast in the corners and we were just kind of a second-place car. My crew chief (Chris Gabehart) was concerned about loose lug nuts there around Lap 130 when the caution came out so he wanted to come and take tires and work on the car and make sure the lug nuts were tight. That set us back and put us probably 11th or 12th in line. We could only muster coming back to sixth.”

Kyle Busch was fifth and had a shot at the end, but without new tires, he had nothing for Harvick either. The problem with that is, there’s not much he says that they can change on the car because it was really good.

“The car was pretty good right off the bat,” Busch said. “There’s still some things we can tweak on, hopefully. I’m scared to mess with it to try to make it better. It was just really, really hard to deal with in traffic. Anytime there was anybody in front of me, I had to be away from them, whether lower or higher, but not follow. It would not track at all with the car in front of me. That’s kind of been our ‘MO’ actually. Overall, just work on that.”

So, that doesn’t lead me to believe that anyone will stop Harvick from a sweep. It will come down to the Team Penske camp in my mind. Ryan Blaney had a strong car in a fourth place run after finishing third and second in the two stages.

“I thought our Mustang was pretty good all day,” said Blaney. “We made a good call there before the competition caution to come in and pit and that cycled us up to 12th or something and we were able to drive to third before that stage and then ran second in the second stage. We took four tires there when we got in our fuel window and it was hard to get through traffic.

“We didn’t handle good so we came in again with maybe 18 to go and changed it up a little bit and made sure we were good on gas and were able to drive through there. I wish we would have kept third before that last caution because I would have chose the bottom and had a little better shot. I am proud of the effort. (Kevin Harvick) was really fast. We need to work on our stuff a little and I think we can compete a little better tomorrow.”

For Joey Logano, he started on the pole and led the first 14 laps and 18 of the opening 19, but once he lost the track position with the lead, his No. 22 Ford struggled in dirty air. While they recognized that and can fix it overnight, he starts in dirty air on Sunday and can they do enough to make it better than Harvick?

“It was a good recovery,” Logano said of his finish of eighth. “A little bit of practice this week would have been nice. That was one of the loosest and out of control race cars I have had.

“At the start of this race. The clean air made us look better than what we were. As soon as I lost clean air I was just trying to hang on. Unfortunately I collected a lot of damage along the way on the back bumper from everyone hitting me. I don’t blame them, I was in the way.

“Over time, by probably the beginning of the third stage we got close. Not quite to where we needed to. Then there at the end we pitted and may have gotten to the other side of it finally. At least we know where the edge is so we can work on it for (Sunday).

“We got a top 10 out of it. If you had told me we were going to finish eighth after the first 50 laps of this thing I would have taken it but greed always sets in and you want a little more there at the end. We got our Mustang for tomorrow and we got to the other side of it. We should be in the ballpark.”

Still, with how things looked on Saturday and how these drivers feel, Sunday’s race is Harvick’s to lose.