Since his dramatic last-lap pass for victory in Sunday’s Daytona 500, Kevin Harvick has been caught up in a coast-to-coast media and promotional whirlwind that has had him just about every place but home.

But while it will be next week before Harvick gets back to the new house he has built in North Carolina, his stay at California Speedway this weekend is something of a homecoming.

First, Harvick is a native of Bakersfield, and it was in this state where he established himself as a young racer and began his climb to prominence in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup Series. He gets to see family and old friends whenever he comes back here to race, and this week he’ll be able to celebrate a big victory with them.

Second, when Harvick climbs back in a race car today, he’ll be doing it as the Daytona 500 champion but he’ll also begin putting that accomplishment behind him and return “home” in another way.

“I’d definitely rather be on the racetrack,” Harvick said. “When you’re in the car at the track, you can kind of get away from the rest of it.”

Kevin Harvick, a native of Bakersfield, Calif., will race in front of family and friends when the Nextel Cup stops at California Speedway in Fontana.

He’ll be on the 2-mile California Speedway track a lot this weekend, too.

Harvick will run Sunday’s Auto Club 300 in the No. 29 Chevrolet owned by Richard Childress Racing, and he’ll also compete in Friday’s Truck Series race and Saturday’s Busch Series race in entries owned by his team, Kevin Harvick Inc.

It’s a busy schedule for a guy whose feet have barely had time to touch the ground since he passed Mark Martin off the final turn to win on Sunday at Daytona.

Team owner Richard Childress, left, and Kevin Harvick celebrate their Daytona 500 victory.

Monday, after having his race-winning car placed on display at Daytona USA, Harvick flew to New York and appeared on David Letterman’s show Monday night. After more television time there Tuesday, he went to ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn. Wednesday, he traveled west and has spent the past two days doing more appearances out here.

“They’ve been very organized with everything, really making things go really smoothly,” Harvick said. “We’ve been able to rest at night and have somewhere nice to sleep, too. It has really not been much worse than being at home.”

Still, getting back to the track will return Harvick to some semblance of routine. After running the entire Busch Series schedule last year, and storming to the championship in the process, he’s not running all the races there this year. One he’s skipping is in Mexico City a week from Sunday, so after California he’ll have at least a little time off.

Before that, however, he’ll try to solve the riddle that California Speedway has been for him and his Nextel Cup team. In nine previous races here, he has not finished better than sixth and has only two top-10 finishes. He was 29th in this race a year ago and 15th later in the season.

“California has been a little bit of a struggle for us,” said Harvick, who is the third straight Daytona 500 champion to return to his native state of California for the circuit’s next race. Jimmie Johnson won last year’s Daytona 500 and Jeff Gordon won it in 2004. “It has probably been one of our worst racetracks, to be honest with you. We want to have a solid weekend and see where we fall with everything.”

Two years ago, Gordon lost an engine at California and followed up his Daytona 500 victory with a 30th-place finish. Last year, though, Johnson came off his Daytona win and finished second at California to Matt Kenseth.

“You have to kind of keep yourself even-keeled across the board to really focus on racing for the championship,” Harvick said. “No matter how high it gets, how bad it gets, you have to forget what happened last week and concentrate on the week at hand.”