BRISTOL, Tenn. - Kevin Harvick's team felt good about its chances at Bristol Motor Speedway until they uncovered the car a few short hours before the race.

Waiting for them was a puddle of leaking power steering fluid.

It was almost like kicking a team that was already down.

But if there's one thing Harvick and his Richard Childress Racing team have proven, its that they are at their best when they are at their lowest.

They did it again Sunday by winning the Food City 500, the first step toward shaking off an embarrassing cheating scandal.

When told of the problem, and that repairing it meant Harvick would have to start last in the 43-car field, Childress called a team meeting to rally the troops.

"I told all the guys, `It's kind of a negative and we don't have our crew chief here, but we have to turn it into a positive,'" the car owner said. "And that's what Kevin did."

Harvick broke a 55-race winless streak with the victory, and then dedicated it to crew chief Todd Berrier, who was sitting at home serving the second of a four-race suspension for cheating in Las Vegas on March 13.

The team has been reeling in the three weeks since, fighting the suspension and the 25 points Harvick was docked (their appeal was denied) and battling the court of public opinion that had branded them cheaters.

But with Childress in charge, Harvick knew the team would rebound.

"I think both of us have been beat down pretty far at some point in our racing careers and you have to learn how to get out of a hole," Harvick said. "I think that is one thing that RCR has always been really good at - they always come back stronger than they were before.

"So this was a huge statement made by our race team, and you don't have to say anything else."

Childress, who used to be a regular atop the late Dale Earnhardt's pit box, decided to climb back on this week to coach Harvick in a show of solidarity for the team. It was the owner's first time on the box since the 2001 season.

Harvick said it showed how angry his boss was, and how determined Childress was to turn things around.

So in a tense, wreck-filled race, Childress coaxed his driver around Bristol's tight 0.533-mile bullring and to Harvick's first victory since he won at Indianapolis in August 2003.

"He can't come down until we lose," Harvick said.

But Childress said his stay was only temporary.

"I'd stay up there if I thought it would help us win every week," he said.

Still, the tandem gave RCR its first win at Bristol since Earnhardt bumped Terry Labonte out of the way on the final lap in 1999.

Harvick qualified 13th, but when his crew uncovered the leak, they had to fix it, and the unapproved repairs forced them to start last. No driver had ever come from last to win at Bristol.

He took the lead with 66 laps to go, pulled away from the pack and easily beat pole-sitter Elliott Sadler to the finish line, with seven lapped cars separating the first- and second-place cars.

"Harvick had a great race car, he was able to pass cars, maneuver his around," Sadler said. "He was tough there at the end. I didn't have anything for him."

Tony Stewart finished third in a Chevrolet, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fourth in a Chevrolet and Dale Jarrett finished fifth in a Ford. Jimmie Johnson was sixth, followed by Travis Kvapil, Kyle Petty, Greg Biffle and Scott Riggs.

The race was stopped for almost 14 minutes with 167 laps to go when Bobby Hamilton Jr. slammed into the back of Ken Schrader, starting a 14-car pileup. The crash collected many of the favorites, including Kurt Busch, who was looking for his fourth straight Bristol victory

Because the accident collected so many contenders, the race restarted with just 12 cars on the lead lap.

Busch was one of them, but his day ended when Johnson and Jeff Burton made contact and Burton's car banged off the inside wall. As it ricocheted back onto the track, it moved directly into Busch's path and Busch couldn't avoid hitting him.

Busch sounded woozy when he slowly radioed his crew to say he was OK, and his steps seemed deliberate as he walked off the track.

"It was a hard hit, it took the wind out of me," Busch said. "I feel horrible, I've never hit that hard before."