It took a few hours before Kevin Harvick realized that he had won the championship. It took time to sink in the achievement that he had accomplished as he won his first Sprint Cup championship.

Right after all the races and all the pictures and flashed and beer and champagne, it was when Harvick had changed to his normal clothes that he saw the result of his long effort.

But the road to success did not come that easy. He had to make tough decision before he was able to reach the final pit stop and the championship as well.

Harvick was a worthy winner for the recently concluded and revamp Chase. Harvick had been forced to win at Phoenix just to advance to Sunday's finale against Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Ryan Newman for the title.

He had to strategize his play in order to move from 12th to victory lane over the final 15 hectic laps.

It was a 13 year wait for Harvick and it was long overdue for the racer. He was with the Richard Childress Racing before finally making a life changing decision to move teams to the Stewart-Haas Racing this season.

It was Tony Stewart, a very good friend of him, who convinced the racer to move to his team. He had promised him to win the much needed championship. And in the end, he chose to be with Stewart.

He said "Tony was pretty adamant that we could race for wins and championships. Whether I finished third or fourth ... I just wasn't excited about going to work. I needed to be excited about going to work, and this just gave me an opportunity to race with one of my good friends."

With him on the group, it is time to find Harvick his own crew. Rodney Childers was courted by Harvick and his team to be a part of his crew. Childers was happy with Michael Waltrip Racing but did not see any near championship near the horizon.

Just like Harvick, it took a long time to convince him to make the move but eventually he did. Childers said "I wasn't even going to take the job until Tony got in his airplane. On my drive home, I said, 'If anybody is willing to do that for me and spend that kind of money for me, they're going to look after me.' He looked me in the eyes that night and said, 'We're going to do this.'"

And so begins Harvick road to victory. He has a new team, a new crew and now a championship on his record.