Las Vegas ? Kevin Harvick took advantage of Matt Kenseth’s late-race misfortune to grab the lead, then held off hard-charging Kasey Kahne to win Saturday’s Busch Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Kenseth appeared to have the best car on the 11/2-mile oval, but got caught up in a crash on a restart 21 laps from the end of the 200-lap Sam’s Town 300. The reigning champion in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup series, a part-time Busch driver, was able to continue, but the damage to Kenseth’s car slowed him down considerably. After the restart on lap 186, Harvick needed only one lap to grab the lead.

Kahne, who finished second to Kenseth two weeks ago in the Cup race at Rockingham and will start from the pole today in the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400, took second place from the slowing Kenseth on lap 192. The 23-year-old racer trailed Harvick by 1.563 seconds at that point, but cut into the margin by about two-tenths of a second on every succeeding lap.

Going into the final lap, Kahne trailed the leader by about four car lengths. He made a run at Harvick coming off turn four, but the veteran drove down onto the apron to keep the youngster behind him and won by 0.119 seconds.

“We didn’t have a dominant car and won the race,” Harvick said. “I’ll take that any day. It’s all about putting yourself in the right spot, and we were in the right spot.”

Kenseth, who led three times for a race-high 68 laps, finished sixth. David Stremme wound up third, followed by Michael Waltrip and Bobby Hamilton Jr.