MARTINSVILLE, Va. Devin Street Shirts . -- Pole-sitter Kevin Harvick led all but two laps and won the spring NASCAR Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday for the third time in the past four years. The former truck team owner yielded the top spot to teammate Ty Dillon for the fourth and fifth laps, but left no doubt which truck was best in leading a series-record 248 laps. It was his fourth career start from the pole in the series, and hes won all four races. It also was his first victory in the truck series for team owner Richard Childress. Until this season, Harvick owned his own truck teams, but gave that up in the off-season. "I said to Richard when he leaned in the window, Why did I ever start a race team?" he said. "Can you imagine how many wins we would have if wed never done that?" This one looked simple, and felt precariously easy, Harvick said. "Nine times out of 10, when you have trucks like this, or cars, and you have a day like that where you think youre by far the fastest, usually they never work out," he said, "so today was a special day to win the pole, lead the most laps and win the race. "Its something that you dont do very often. Im pretty happy for everybody." Dillon, in his fourth start, was in close communication with Harvicks team all day and ran second almost the entire race, but had to hold off James Buescher on a restart with six laps to go. He did that easily, and followed Harvick to a comfortable second-place finish. "I think our truck was just as good. Thats just Harvick," Dillon said. "Hes been in a lot of races here, won a lot of races. Second place in my first start at Martinsville. Ill take it." Buescher held on for third, followed by Justin Lofton and Timothy Peters. For Buescher, it was a strange day considering the 0.526-mile venue, where trucks usually finish a race with missing sheet metal and tire-sized donuts on the side. The race was slowed by seven cautions for 49 laps, but there was little drama, especially at the front. "Ive never had such an uneventful Martinsville," he said. "We started in the top 10 and worked our way forward all day. Theres just a little dent in the grill." John King, who won the season-opening race at Daytona, finished ninth in his first Martinsville start and retained the points lead by one over Peters and Lofton. Harvicks 248 laps led broke the record of 246 set by Mike Skinner, also at Martinsville, on March 31, 2007. http://www.cowboysstore.us.com/Black-59-Anthony-Hitchens-Womens-Jersey/ . Playing under the roof at Ariake Colosseum because of rain, del Potro came back from a sluggish first set to secure the win in just over two hours. "The match came to me in the end," del Potro said. Zack Martin Navy Blue Jersey . The six-foot-one, 198-pound Blomstrand has played 44 games this season in Swedens second-tier Allsevenkan league. He collected eight penalty minutes in 14 games with Djurgardens and 19 points (13 goals, six assists) in 30 games with Almtuna, ranking third in goals.CLEVELAND - As the old saying goes, if you play with fire, youre going to get burned. Dwane Casey, who has used the phrase as a cautionary tale after lethargic starts of the recent past, came just short of saying I told you so Tuesday evening. His team had been getting away with it, far more often than any team should. Yes, theyre a resilient bunch and that was the case again in Cleveland as they clawed back from a 21-point deficit - even taking a brief fourth-quarter lead - but its been masking the underlying issue. Theyre an open-faced sandwich, missing the top bun. "You cant play in this league that way and expect to come back each and every night," Casey said after Torontos 102-100 loss to the Cavaliers. "Its bit us more than weve won, it feels like." "Until we fix that, among us, among ourselves, then its going to be an uphill battle every night." For the second time in three days, the Raptors trailed by nine after the first quarter, allowing another team with a losing record, also missing their best player, to shoot above 52 per cent to open the game. The start was eerily similar to Sundays, at home to Atlanta, lacking effort, focus and purpose on both ends of the floor. Even without injured point guard Kyrie Irving, Cleveland killed the visiting Raptors with speed and precision, exposing a reoccurring hole in their interior defence by darting into the paint at will. The comeback was inevitable. Its what they do. Down by 21 early in the third, Toronto staged a 21-9 run to close out the quarter. Kyle Lowry - running back and forth from the locker room all night, battling an upset stomach - scored half of his team-high 22 points in the frame. Greivis Vasquez would give the Raptors their first lead since the opening minutes, draining a three-pointer midway through the fourth before reality set in. "I think everybodys energy was low from having to come back," Lowry said. From that moment on they hit just one of their final 10 shots and on the last possession, down only two, they failed to even get one off. It was a play they had just run with success. Amir Johnson was looking for Lowry to turn the corner, but he was cut off. Instead, Vasquez took the handoff and, trying to spin right, towards the bucket, he lost his footing. "It was me going to my weak hand and I lost my balance, stepped kind of weird," said Vasquez, who scored 16 points of Torontos bench. "I turned the ball over. Ill take responsibility. Im not going to run away. Im a man." A noble gesture but, as Casey pointed out, its not the reason for the loss. "Thats not the game-decider," the Raptors coach said. "The game was decided the way we approached the first quarter." "Its easy to get up for OKC, its easy to get up for Miami, its easy to get up for Indiana but the teams that are not in the playoff picture, they are playing for something, too," he continued. Devin Street Jersey. "Theyre playing for pride, which is probably a little bit more dangerous than guys trying to save minutes and save themselves for the playoffs." Theres a lesson to be learned from this loss and it shouldnt take long to figure out whether or not its been absorbed. The Raptors - now the Easts fourth seed, leapfrogged by the Bulls with Tuesdays defeat - will travel to Boston in the second night of a back-to-back and first game of a home-and-home set with the Celtics, another scrappy team looking to play spoiler. "Weve got to get the mindset of being the hunter instead of the hunted because," Casey added. "Thats how we got where we are, being a desperate team, a hungry team and not believing the press clippings or where we are in the standings." Birthday blues Although Lowry would have preferred to celebrate his 28th birthday with a win, the Raptors point guard recorded his 18th double-double with 10 assists to go along with his 22 points. Lowry extended his career-high streak of 19 or more points to 10 games and also became the first Raptor to score 20-plus in eight straight since Chris Bosh did so in 2010. Amir passes VC on blocks list With his third-quarter swat on Spencer Hawes, Johnson recorded his 416th block as a member of the Raptors, passing Vince Carter for second on the teams all-time block shots list. Johnson, who had 12 points and nine rebounds on Tuesday, still has a ways to go to catch Bosh, topping the franchise list with 600 blocks. Patterson nearing a return Patrick Patterson, who has missed 10 straight games with an ulnar collateral sprain in his right elbow, was reassessed on Monday and is headlong well, the team revealed before Tuesdays game in Cleveland. Although hes been cleared for contact, theres still no timetable for his return to game action. "Its a lot up to the medical staff and when they feel he can go," Casey said. "Its one of those things where if he gets hit in the wrong way it could be trouble for a lot longer so thats why they want to make sure its well enough." The stat The Raptors fell just short of matching their largest comeback of the season. They last overcame a 21-point deficit in their home win over Dallas on Jan. 22. Toronto hasnt had multiple wins in which theyve trailed by 20 or more points in the same season since 2004-05. The quote "Weve just got to understand what were playing for," Vasquez said. "Weve got a big one tomorrow [in Boston]. Its a must-win because were actually playing for something. If you dont get up for that youve got to get your gas up. Weve just got to be motivated, man. This is crunch time. This is important for us. Tomorrows a must-win, no matter what. No excuses." ' ' '
