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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — They celebrated together, just as they did last year. Kevin Harvick and Richard Childress back in Victory Lane at Daytona.

Last year, it was their only highlight in what became a dismal NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Some wondered whether Harvick would remain with Childress' team. Those questions persist with Harvick's contract expiring after this season.

Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout victory showed that Childress' team could be bouncing back, continuing a surge from the end of last season.

But will it be enough to keep Harvick?

"Bottom line is Richard Childress has given me a great opportunity to be a part of this sport and the last thing you want to do is throw mud in somebody's face and be disrespectful," Harvick said before the season began. "My main goal this year, no matter how it all turns out, is I don't want to be disrespectful to anybody. If it ends, I want it to end peacefully."

It's hard to imagine Harvick staying with Childress if last year's woes persist.

While Harvick followed his 2009 Shootout win by finishing second in the Daytona 500, his results declined afterward.

The cars weren't fast most of the year, and crew changes also failed to improve the results quickly. Childress swapped the teams of Casey Mears and Harvick in the spring. Yet, it wasn't only Harvick struggling. Clint Bowyer was as high as second in the points six races into the season and Jeff Burton reached sixth in the points by May, but all four Childress cars were out of the top 12 by late June.

Later in the year, Childress swapped crew chiefs and reorganized again. He cut from four to three cars this season after Mears lost his sponsor.

"We had a lot of things wrong," Childress said of last year.

Changes were made to the engineering department and new equipment was purchased. That helped as the cars — and results — improved late last year. Burton finished the season with four consecutive top-10s finishes. Bowyer had four top-15 finishes and Harvick had two top-five finishes in the last three races.

"It's difficult because it's difficult to be successful in this sport," Burton said. "I'm not a big believer in momentum. I think that success creates momentum. Momentum doesn't create success."

Saturday was a good start, but how a team performs at Daytona does not indicate how it will do the rest of the season since the rules are so specialized here and at Talladega. The past two Daytona 500 winners failed to make the Chase.

Harvick realizes his Shootout victory doesn't guarantee success later this week.

"I've been here enough times to know that this can be a funny week," he said.

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com