NFL
By: Zachary Draves
For the last twenty-plus years, Kevin Harvick has established himself as one of the most venerable and decorated drivers in NASCAR history. At the age of 46, he can still race with the best of them and is vying for a shot at his second Cup Series championship driving the #4 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing. He is currently 16th in points which is the cut-off position as part of the NASCAR playoff series system with 2 wins, 7 top fives, and 13 top tens.
His win at Michigan on August 7th broke a 65 losing streak dating back to 2020. He then repeated at Richmond the following Sunday to capture his 60th career win and put him 9th on the all-time win list. A list that includes Richard Petty, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, Darrel Waltrip, Bobby Allison, Jimmie Johnson, Cale Yarborough, and of course Dale Earnhardt Sr.
Growing up in Bakersfield, California, racing was all that Harvick wanted to do and it was the man who drove the black #3 Goodwrench Chevrolet known as “The Intimidator” whom he looked up to and wanted to be like. After racing up the ranks from the then NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and NASCAR Busch Series driving for Richard Childress Racing, named after the crew chief of his idol, Harvick got his chance to race Cup in 2001 but under the most tragic of circumstances.
The death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. at the 2001 Daytona 500 rocked the racing world to its core. After originally scheduling Harvick to race full-time in the Busch Series one more year before Cup, Childress changed plans and put him in Earnhardt’s famed Goodwrench Chevy that was changed to the #29. On March 11, 2001, three weeks after Earnhardt’s death, Harvick captured his first career Cup win in the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store 500 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in a dramatic photo finish with Jeff Gordon.
Since then, Harvick has been able to amass a stellar record on the track in some of the sports’ biggest races. Along with his current 60 wins, he has attained 243 Top-Five Finishes, 426 Top-10 Finishes, 31 Poles, and was the NASCAR Cup Series Champion in 2014. He won the 2007 Daytona 500, three Brickyard 400s, three Southern 500s at Darlington, and has won more races than anyone at the Phoenix International Raceway with nine.
Along the way, he has developed a reputation for being fiery and outspoken, very much in sync with that of his idol. But even with that, Harvick harkens back to an era where drivers exuded the passion, intensity, and competitive spirit that made them folk heroes to one of the most loyal fan bases in all of sports. As a result, he is somewhat of an intimidator in his own right and one could argue that Earnhardt himself would take a liking to it.
With a recent DNF at this past Sunday’s Southern 500, Harvick is still looking to finish within the point system.
In a recent interview on The Jim Rome Show on CBS Sports Radio that aired prior to the Southern 500, the self-proclaimed “Rhythm Racer” speaks at length about this season, his hopes, new cars, and the Playoffs.
In this clip of the show, Harvick gives his take on the current field of drivers with the Playoffs around the corner.
The full interview can be found here:
You will hear a veteran driver who seems to have reached a point in his life where has put so many things in perspective while at the same time still proving that he is a contender through and through.
