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It’s been a quiet year for Kevin Harvick as he hasn’t been in much of headlines. Perhaps that is set to changing as we head towards the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
The driver of the No. 4 Busch Beer Chevrolet won the rain shortened Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway for his second win of the season and Stewart-Hass Racing’s first win at Bristol. It was also first time since 2004 Chevrolet has been in victory lane at Bristol for the night race and the first time Chevrolet had a weekend sweep during the Bristol night races weekend since 1999.
The Bakersfield, Caliornia native says from the drop of the green flag his car was super fast and feels his car was its strongest in the top groove going into turns three and four but weakest during the restarts.
“I was excited that you were able to use the bottom of the racetrack, and the lap cars had an option,” Harvick said. “You just didn’t get pinned up high. Really just want to applaud the racetrack for the effort that they made this weekend to really get that bottom groove working so that we had multiple grooves of racing, and I think today as a driver you had a lot of options to make your car work and maneuver through traffic and make up positions. We started 24th and pretty much drove through the field because of that.
“I think Friday night was probably one of the best XFINITY races I’ve ever sat and watched. Just really, really happy to see Bristol back where it is this weekend, and looking forward to coming back and obviously coming to victory lane is always exciting. It’s been a decade since I’ve been to victory lane here, and I know this is the race that he had circled on the calendar every year. I was like, really, you’re going to circle that one? But it’s definitely added some excitement for me over the last three years to come back to Bristol knowing how much it meant to him, and that’s what motivated me. They give me great cars to drive, and tonight was no different.”
This season the Toyota teams seem to be the cars to beat with SHR being the only Chevrolet team even close to being equal in comparison. However, the 2014 NASCAAR Sprint Cup Series Champion feels its not competition between Chevy and Toyota but to not beat himself. He says in this race they didn’t beat themselves
“We’ve done a good job in getting pit road where it needed to be, whether it’s been me or whatever the situation has been, we’ve had some circumstances that hadn’t worked out,” Harvick said. “We’ve had a lot of bad luck. We’ve had some things that we’ve done wrong. But the performance hasn’t really been an issue. Yeah, there’s been a couple racetracks where they beat us, but I don’t think I could count more than three races that I thought that we wouldn’t have been in contention to win.
“We’re going to block all that out. You know, it’s us against us. That’s how we’re going to treat it, and if that’s not good enough, then we’ll go back to the drawing board next year. I think we have a good plan. I think we have great cars, and we’ve made a lot of adjustments, and we’ve had a lot to adjust to as we started the year to overcome, and there’s just a lot going on, and I think hopefully this win and everything getting ready to start with the Chase is going to put all the pieces together, and I think everybody has been working hard to do that.”
While it sparks the conversation, it doesn’t matter to Happy – just like it doesn’t matter to him whether he wins a night race or a day race, compared to a lot of the other drivers whom says it’s so awesome to win a night race.
“But for me to walk into the racetrack last night and see the crowd that you hadn’t seen in a few years and see the excitement back inside of the racetrack, it definitely felt like the night race used to,” Harvick added. “To come to Bristol is just different anyway when you come to the night race. I’m just glad we won.”
Harvick has been consistent all season long but a win this close to the cut-off for the chase gives him confidence in himself, his team and his car. It should be known he is ready to go and give his all for the last ten races of the season.
“I think that goes away tonight, and you get back into that — we know we have fast cars, knowing that you can win again, and it kind of happened that way for us in 2014 at Charlotte when we won, and it just kind of reinstilled that confidence of everything we know we can do, and it finally all just came together tonight,” Harvick stated. “We’re three weeks from the end of the regular season, and I don’t think it could have come together at a better time. I’m looking forward to going to the next few weeks and really getting started in Chicago with our test. I think it’s Tuesday. Today is Sunday. So yeah, Tuesday. A lot to be learned there.”
