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| - Kevin Harvick held off a late charge from Denny Hamlin to win the NASCAR Cup race at Pocono on Saturday as the stock car series got back on the track after a turbulent week. Harvick, 44, had won at every track except Pocono in NASCAR's current rotation, but he'd come up short in 38 prior appearances at Pocono in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. The 2014 series champion won his third race for Stewart-Haas Racing this season. Saturday's race was the first of two scheduled this weekend as NASCAR seeks to get the focus back on racing after a week that opened with a federal investigation into a noose found in the garage stall of Bubba Wallace, the only black driver in the elite Cup series. The FBI found that the noose, used as a garage door pull rope, had been there since at least last October and concluded Wallace wasn't targeted in a hate crime. Wallace was angered by suggestions on social media that the entire incident was a hoax, and NASCAR president Steve Phelps said this week -- releasing a picture to back up his comments -- that the noose "was real" and officials' concerns for Wallace when it was found warranted. The incident played out against a backdrop of continuing protests over racial injustice and police brutality across the United States. Wallace himself has played a key role in recent weeks in prompting NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag at its venues. The flag, seen as a symbol of slavery and racism by many, has been a staple at NASCAR tracks, particularly in the sport's southern heartland. Wallace admitted this week that the incident at Talladega in Alabama and its aftermath had left him "wore the hell out." He finished 22nd in his No. 43 Chevrolet on Saturday. bb/acb
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