Harvick Seeks Another Lobster from NHMS
What a difference a year makes for Kevin Harvick. He is the defending winner of the Foxwoods Resort Casino 301, but he entered last year’s event 2nd in points with 5 wins. This year he is winless and 101 points down instead of last year’s 59.
Rodney Childers joined Stewart-Haas Racing for the 2014 season. After 195 races as Harvick’s crew chief, that experience has paid dividends with 1 championship, 22 wins, and an average finish of 10.5. Harvick frequented the top 10 at the start of the season. Lately, he’s struggled with back to back top 10s once in the last 11 races.
“You have that connection and that communication to be able to productively work on things and keep things moving in the right direction, and we’ve definitely done that,” Harvick said. “We haven’t been to victory lane, but we’ve slowly but surely progressed in the right direction and that’s really where you see that continuity and that relationship and experience as a group together pay off.”
He is one of 6 drivers with three wins at Loudon, including Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, and Ryan Newman. Harvick has 11 top 5s and 19 top 10s, tied with active drivers Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman.
“It’s just like anything else, I could probably tell you the ones that we lost and felt like we should have won, and last year our car came around at the end of the race. We had a decent car all weekend, but we capitalized on some mistakes and a good car at the end of the race, so we’ve had a good car here a number of times, just last year it finally all came together.”
The No. 4 Busch Beer/National Forest Foundation Ford Mustang driver has 2 wins and 4 top-fives in his last 5 starts here. It’s placed him as one of the best drivers recently at the ‘Magic Mile.’
“At RCR we had a lot of good, flat track races at Richmond and Loudon and we only won here one time and I thought this was one of our better tracks, so I think as you look at different race tracks I feel like we’ve always run fairly well here. I feel like we probably should have been to victory lane 10 times here, but you look at the results and it’s just hard to win these races, but over the last few years it’s gone OK and we’ve been on the right side of it.”
Since a win at Phoenix in March 2018, Harvick has focused on bringing attention to grassroots racing. Harvick said the common title sponsor, Winston connected local fans to the current Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Contrary to many fans’ opinion, the competitors in a regional touring series like the opportunity to race against one of the stars of the sport because of the additional media recognition, attendance, and sponsorship value.
“In my opinion, that’s where a lot of the grassroots fans live, and I feel like there’s been a huge disconnect over the last five or six years of participation from what’s happening here and what’s happening there. Really, I’ve said this a number of times that running the K&N races a few years ago, three or four years ago, you really started to hear that opinion of, ‘we just really need some help here.’”
Harvick has participated in supporting local tracks through contingency programs for the SRL Southwest Tour, Stafford (CT) Motor Speedway and promoter Bill McAnally in California.
“You’re talking about $125 to $150 buck at a time, but when you can take the 13th-place driver like we do at Stafford and make him make the same money as the sixth or seventh-place driver, that’s a pretty big deal to that guy who is running mid-pack, struggling to get to the race track, and maybe he paid for one or two tires that night.
“You’re not talking about a lot of money. I tell a lot of people this when we deal with our foundations and the things that we do at our public high schools, especially at home, it doesn’t take a lot of money. Some of them it just takes time, so the short tracks, to me, has a direct effect on TV ratings, fans in the grandstands, especially in the local market and you see a lot of these race tracks participating with their local markets, whether they’re dirt tracks or asphalt tracks or whatever they may be, and drawing all of that together is important for the health of this sport and racing in general.”
By: Nicholas Teto, YankeeRacer.com
Sources: Racing-Reference.info
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