KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Light Ford Mustang – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TEAMWORK AMONGST THE FORD DRIVERS HERE AT TALLADEGA? “Nobody has done it better than we had last year at this race, so I don’t think there’s really any debate on how that will work when it comes to Stewart-Haas Racing. There’s really no debate on what our four cars can do and how we did it. The commitment and the things that it took to do all that is above and beyond what many other teams have done.”
CAN IT BE DONE AGAIN? “I don’t know. We did it once.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE RACES COMING UP? “Right now, we’re just focused on Talladega and the things we need to do here to try to take it one week at a time – to really focus on the task at hand. That’s how we race. We don’t look ahead. We constantly try to focus on the task that we need to accomplish in that particular week. I don’t have the capacity and I don’t think anybody else has the capacity to think about what it takes to do something else while you’re trying to focus on that week just because, for me, it’s not like I’m building a car, trying to prep it six weeks out It’s really just focus on that particular week and adapt to what you need to be doing when you get home on Monday.”
ARIC’S DEAL WAS ANNOUNCED THIS WEEK. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? “That’s good. I didn’t know it was up. That’s kind of like Rodney’s deal. I just assumed that both of those guys have been a part of everything that we’ve been doing the last couple of years and it would feel weird not to have them around. Aric is a model teammate as far as the way that things are approached and the way that you can talk to him, and the way that he goes about his business. From driver and a team standpoint, you’re definitely glad to see that Aric’s in the car again.”
YOU WILL HAVE MORE STARTS ON SUNDAY THAN DALE EARNHARDT DID IN HIS CAREER. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT’S BEEN THAT LONG? “It should make a lot of us standing here feel old. I think as you look back and you don’t realize how long it actually has been and, you guys have heard me say this before, but in the beginning it was really hard to understand the magnitude of the circumstances the first couple years, just because you didn’t really understand much about what was going on as you got into the second year and really started to understand what happened the year before. It was already done. Sometimes you do things and then all of a sudden you get past those things and you haven’t really taken in all of the things that happen because you just didn’t understand them. Really, that first particular year we raced so much and the team protected me from so many things because we were on the road so much and didn’t have to really understand the magnitude of it, but there was no hiding from it over an off season and the next year as the expectations changed. But when you look at, like when I came in we started racing 36 races and so it happened a little bit quicker than it would have with, I don’t know what the total number of years were, but I’m sure it’s more. It’s definitely a unique number and stat and makes you think back to a lot of things. Next year will be the 20-year anniversary of my first win at Atlanta, so, I don’t know. It’s like everything went by and all of a sudden here you are and it’s gonna be 20 years later, and your 677th start this weekend. It seems like a lot of races.”
ON THE GOOD SIDE OF IT YOU’RE STILL IN POSITION THAT 20 YEARS LATER ARE STILL IN AN OPPORTUNITY TO COMPETE TO WIN RACES AND CHAMPIONSHIPS? “I think as I look at my career, the first 13 years were at RCR and we had some great moments and great times, but after coming to Stewart-Haas Racing, winning a championship the first year, finding a crew chief like Rodney that you get along with so well and a group of guys that you get along with so well kind of change your perspective on how you look at things and the way you go about things, and having kids changed that and Keelan is so enthused about being at the race track that it makes me enthused, and I think as you look at that we’ve been fortunate to be successful. We’ve been in two scenarios that have been good for me professionally and personally and I consider myself a little bit of a late bloomer with the situation at Stewart-Haas and the championship and the enthusiasm that goes towards continuing to chase after a full season of racing, so I don’t see that ending anytime soon, I hope, and I think as you continue to be successful and with a group of people that you really enjoy being around, for me is a lot of it and obviously having my family around and now that Piper is old enough and having them at the track more, everybody is enthused about racing. We’re in a good spot.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT EARNHARDT’S LAST WIN HERE AT TALLADEGA WHEN YOU SEE IT? “I have watched it and Dale was really good at that, but much like our racing today, you can’t do that by yourself. Kenny Wallace had a big part to do with that and I think as you go back and see the commitment that Kenny had to him and the commitment that Dale had to putting that car in places that it probably didn’t fit wasn’t something that was abnormal in his shoes, so it was definitely quite the comeback to watch those two guys come through the field. I’ve seen it several times.”
WOULD IT BE HARD TO DO TODAY? “It would be different, that’s for sure. It would definitely be different and I think as you look at I went to Richard Childress’ fundraiser on Wednesday night and the first person that I walked into was Johnny Morris and Johnny Morris is so extremely excited about driving that car on Sunday that he can’t hardly stand it, so I think as you kind of bring that car back and they had it out front at the event and you look at that car and you look at that black car with that white 3 on the side of it, it brings back a lot of moments that aren’t just about Talladega. Those were moments that happened at a number of places where you counted those guys out.”
HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT AS AN ORGANIZATION HOW YOU’RE GOING TO APPROACH THE NEW CAR FOR 2021? “I think we’re in a fortunate position from a team owner side of things. We’ve already been through this scenario, in my opinion, once when we switched to Ford and having a strategic plan of how you’re going to race and what you’re going to do as far as the transition. I feel like we’re well positioned for that and I think as you go into that you’ve obviously seen the commitment that our owners make to giving us the things that you need. It’s an interesting transition because there’s no real transition. It’s really just everything is new. When you start thinking about that, especially when you look at the guys from like Front Row and you hear those guys talk about – most of the time they’ve never bought a new wheel. They’ve never bought a new car, and in this particular instance everybody is gonna have new wheels. They’re different. There’s no way somebody is gonna bring a set of wheels, the axels, the a-frames, and all those things are different. Really, the only thing you’re gonna take is maybe your dash and the engine package and some of the drivetrain pieces up front, but there’s really no transition because it’s all brand new. I think the most important thing is just gonna be how we understand that process and how the car functions aerodynamically and from a suspension standpoint and all those things. Understanding it will be the biggest battle.”
WHAT’S BEEN THE BIGGEST CHANGE IN THIS SPORT THE LAST 20 YEARS? “Safety. I think, for me, that’s how I came into this sport was during that period of the lapse of driver safety in 2001 when Dale died and the rapid progression of the way that the inside of the car and that’s the biggest that has changed because I live in there on a week-to-week basis and have seen the progression of ‘where a helmet, you don’t have to really wear gloves if you don’t want to, you don’t have to wear a full face helmet if you don’t want to,’ to today where they’re bugging you all the time to go update your concussion protocol and going to do your physicals and all those things you used to just cowboy up and not do and think that was the right way to do it. The standard of the safety side of things and it still progresses rapidly today because NASCAR pushes it. The soft walls. The helmets. The seats. I mean, a number of those things have changed and I would say outside of the car is just the engineering, the amount of engineering that goes into these cars is still going to be surprising to somebody who comes from an industry that’s never seen a NASCAR race.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE ANY ADVANTAGE OVER THE GUYS WHO HAVE FACED ELIMINATION MULTIPLE TIMES IN TERMS OF HANDLING THE PRESSURE? “I think for us it’s really just a one week at a time approach and whether you’re in a good position or a bad position it’s really not gonna be any different for us because we have been through those scenarios. I’m not gonna approach my week any differently. I’m not gonna do anything any differently. You’re gonna go and prepare the same and that’s the commitment that everybody on our team has made a few years ago was to try to Playoff race every week, try to have the preparation and mindset and if you’re not gonna finish first, get the best finish that you can. If you’re not gonna win the stage, get the most stage points that you can. Setting those expectations like that every week doesn’t really change. We don’t change how we race, ever.”
HAS IT CHANGED AT ALL SINCE THE START OF THIS FORMAT? “There’s really nothing that’s nerve-racking for me anymore. I feel like we’ve been through it and I feel that anxiety and anticipation and nerves on a week-to-week basis because I look at more of letting those guys down on my car on a week-to-week basis because they’ve put so much into the preparation that it would be hard to sit with yourself knowing that they prepared that car to come to the race track and win by putting everything that they have in the car. Whether you do or don’t, you need to do the best that you can and that’s just really been the approach that we’ve taken since the last three years. I guess that kind of started, I mean there was so much anxiety the first year just because it was the first year of Stewart-Haas and things changed, and as we got into the second year I felt like the second year went better than the first year and you don’t win the championship. Having all of those rollercoaster of emotions it doesn’t have stability in the way that everybody is mentally to go up and down like that, so when everything is as stable as it can be, you have to approach it the same every week.”
WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN YOU’RE LEAVING A TEAM IN TERMS OF MEETINGS AND WHAT YOU CAN DO? “I think once somebody is leaving a team, you’re not invited to the meetings anymore. I think you try to keep as much information as you can as close as you can while still trying to keep that car competitive and that driver as involved as possible in the happenings of whatever is going on. You want to try to have things as competitive as possible, but you also start to protect a number of things as you get towards the last two or three months. It just depends when you know.”
DO YOU GET MORE CLOSE TO THE VEST WITH WHAT YOU SHARE? “I don’t even think about it. It’s all out there anyway with all the SMT data the things that are out there anyway. It’s all out there and one of the things that keeps this sport competitive is that we all park about five feet from each other and then at the end of the year everybody wants to make a little bit more money and they start changing teams around and the next thing you know that guys knows what that guy did and it all moves around. It all evolves so fast and changes so much that I’ve learned if you just tell the truth nobody thinks you’re telling the truth and it all works out anyway.”
SEVEN GUYS WENT OVER 203 MPH TODAY AND DENNY ALMOST WENT 205. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE SPEEDS YOU’RE RUNNING? “That’s why I don’t even look at them anymore (laughing). I was in that same group where Denny got that run and we just got a good run on the pack, so I think if they were concerned about the speed they would have probably tried to fix it after the first race here and it doesn’t seem like anybody was really concerned with it. I don’t know what changed, but I think they’ll probably be over 200 miles an hour most of the day.”
BLOCKING HAS BEEN AN ISSUE HERE AND MORE WRECKS HAVE HAPPENED AT THE FRONT. DO PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THE CLOSING RATES AND HOW TO PROPERLY DO THAT? “There’s been many evolutions in racing and blocking is one for me that I’ve had to evolve with, but blocking is a part of our sport now on a weekly basis. It’s not just here. I mean, you see it at the mile-and-a-half race tracks. You’re just gonna have wrecks blocking. Sometimes you’re gonna make a bad move. It’s just something that’s a little bit newer in the pace of the car that’s approaching you and the style of block and how you throw it, but we’re gonna wreck from a block because it’s just become part of what we do.”
CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Mobil Delvac 1 Ford Mustang – WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN A DRIVER IS LEAVING AN ORGANIZATION? “When I left RCR it was a lot of mixed emotions. It was emotional. That was a place that put me on the map when you really think about your life and gave you your opportunity. All the while you’re excited about your new opportunity, but it was hard to leave the folks behind that I’d grown to call my friends and family and everything else. It’s no different than leaving anything in life, I would think. If you’re a kid going to a different school or anything else, it’s part of the business but it is tough. When you’re on the road with somebody as much as we are it’s no different if a media member or anybody else leaves it’s a part of you leaving.”
WHAT ABOUT THE MEETING PART OF IT? “First of all, that would be the best thing one could ever tell me anyway is you’re no longer wanted in this meeting. Meetings suck.”
IT SEEMS YOU’VE BEEN ON THE BUBBLE FOR 10 WEEKS. HOW DO YOU KEEP IT FROM BEING OVERWHELMING? “Everybody has strong suits and I know that. I know that that’s one good thing that I have is you can keep it serious and keep it down to business and stay focused, but you’ve got to make sure that you keep it light-hearted and make sure that the people around you are having fun and not freaking out because nobody can make sound decisions, whether it’s in the car or on the box or in the pit stall changing those tires as fast as those guys have to do it. Nobody can work under that pressure if they’re mentally not in a good place and on the positive side of that. This weekend everybody keeps asking and calling me, ‘Hey, man. What do you think about this weekend?’ Sponsors and all I’m like, ‘Honestly, I’m looking forward to it.’ I like this. I like being able to go to a race and have it figured out one way or the other. Everybody is freaking out over this race because it’s worthy of that. It’s all on the line here this weekend. We’ve seen it time and time again. When you’re under this set of circumstances in the Playoffs, whether it was the old format, the Chase format or this three races and you’re out deal, this is a pivotal race. Anytime you’re gonna put a restrictor plate race, it’s a 50-50 deal. I tell everybody all the time we’ve got about a 50 percent chance of winning or flipping 17 times. I mean, it’s just one or the other, but at least I’ll know when I wake up Monday morning. Even if it goes down and you end up on the back side of that, I was talking and wrecked out, you still get up and work your ass off Monday morning and all week long to prepare to go after it because you never know what’s gonna happen at a track like Kansas either. You’ve always got to stay focused on the task at hand. I like this time of year. It comes at a good time for me, not that I’m burned out, but I’m just tired of chasing that same old rabbit. The rabbit is damn near dead. We need a new rabbit and when the Playoffs start you’ve got a new rabbit and it’s shiny and healthy and runs like hell.”
WILL YOUR FRIENDS AVOID YOU NEXT WEEK AT KANSAS IF YOU’RE STILL ON THE BUBBLE? “If you’re out, they do. If you’re out, it’s funny. When you suck nobody wants to hang out with you. When you run better everybody wants to hang out with you. That is life.”
WHY DO YOU THINK YOU’RE SO GOOD WHEN IT’S ALL ON THE LINE? YOU KIND OF ENJOY THAT? “I don’t know. I think everybody’s personality is different. I actually work better under that because I focus more and not that you don’t otherwise, but it just keeps you sharp, it keeps you honed it. I like that adrenaline rush. I like knowing that it’s all on the line. It’s do-or-die time. It’s fun to get up in the morning. We left 45 minutes early. Lorra is like, ‘Hey, did you say we only had to leave at 10:30?’ We pulled in at like 9:50 and like, ‘I’m ready. Let’s go.’ I was ready to go to Talladega. I’ve got a lot of friends here. This infield, I went over and took some pictures of that. Holy cow. What an awesome job for a lot less money I’ve seen spent at other places. I dig it. I enjoyed every part of it. Obviously, navigating around the garage once we figured out how to get on the race track, which anytime something is new you’ve got to figure it out, but being able to go in there and it reminds me of club level seating at a Chiefs game or something, where you can go and kind of get out of your seat and go in and still keep an eye on the game with the big screen TVs everywhere – pull up to a bar and share a laugh with somebody else or maybe somebody’s got one of your favorite driver’s shirt on, maybe they don’t. Maybe they’ve got that other guy and if they do maybe you heckle them a little bit and get your burger, get your beer and watch the race – walk over and see the cars the guys are working on. I mean, I walked right up and watched my guys working on the car with the fans this morning. They did a good job with it. I was proud of what I saw this morning.”
AND THEY KEPT THE IDENTITY OF TALLADEGA. “I think they nailed it. I think it’s perfect. It’s not overdone. It’s not overthought. A lot of times in big business like this it’s overthought. I think they did a good job. I like it.”
DO YOU LIKE THIS KIND OF RACING AND DOES ATTITUDE MAKE A DIFFERENCE? “It’s a mindset. You’re either gonna come in and it’s gonna bother you or it’s not. I do believe on these tracks like this you’ve got to keep putting yourself in position. If you put yourself in position and you get wiped out, it’s the nature of the beast. I do believe that it’s no different. Brett, my spotter, always says if you watch him play blackjack – the tide’s coming in or the tide’s coming out. And the last few times it’s been going out. I think it’s time to come back in. That’s what I texted him this week. ‘The tide’s coming back in this week, you watch.’ And I believe that.”
YOUR 500TH START THIS WEEK. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? “I love what I do. I just love the people. I’ve always loved people. I grew up, my father owns a towing business. You’re always out meeting people and when you meet them people they’re not necessarily in the best of moods or the best of situations. They’ve either wadded their car up or the damn thing has let them down, or they’ve had a flat tire, run it out of gas, something. You’re always helping somebody out of bad situation, but nonetheless I was always in and out of truck shops. You talk about a perfect fit with Rush Truck Centers. That’s literally what I grew up doing. I remember being a little kid and pulling into a Peterbilt shop with my old man with one on the back of it and rolling into a truck shop and getting that thing fixed and unloading it. You’re always around people, so when you come to something like this it’s like a candy store for me. All the fans and interacting with them, whether they like you or hate you it’s still fun, it’s still a fun interaction. Coming to a track like Talladega nobody does it better. I love Fridays, the schedule is finally conducive to this style of racing, where it doesn’t really matter about practice or anything else. Qualifying, she’s pretty easy. Everybody goes out and enjoys themselves, enjoys the infield, enjoys fans and has a good time, and all of a sudden Sunday comes around and have a good time.”
DID YOU THINK YOU’D EVERY REACH 500? “No. I didn’t even know. You read that and you’re like, “Hmmm, I’ll be damned.’ Five hundered starts, that’s a lot of them, and then you read like I think Kevin just had his 600th or something, so it’s not that bad. It’s a long time, though – a lot of races, and it’s something to be proud of, to stay relevant enough and to stay in equipment for that long for 500 races is something that any driver or any individual that’s in a sport for that long, compared to about any other sport that’s a long time to be in a professional sport.”
HAVE YOU BEEN IN DISCUSSIONS YET WITH FORD IN TERMS OF A GAME PLAN FOR SUNDAY? “Of course we’re gonna work together. We’re gonna work together and make sure that a Ford wins.”
