Insider's View: Kevin Harvick

As most of you know, there's a new face at Richard Childress Racing, and that new face instantly brought a new attitude, too.

KEVIN HARVICK  •  Driver Page  •  Richard Childress Racing  •  Message Board

Steve Park has come over and has been ecstatic about the way everything has gone so far, and every one of us at RCR shares those same feelings.

Everybody is really happy about the new fresh attitude -- new good attitude, at that. Steve isn't somebody that's going to come in and bash everything that goes on in the team like we had before.

Steve needed a new page in his book, so to speak, and I think he really likes the guidance that Richard gives us all.

Richard will take you around the shoulder and tell you what you're doing wrong and how you can do it better and doesn't put a lot of pressure on you.

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There's a clean sheet of paper here for Steve, and he really fits in really well with myself and Robby (Gordon). He's around the same age that we are and he's the same style of person we are, so it's a really good fit.

A lot of people seemed surprised that Richard hired Steve to drive the AOL Chevrolet. I'm not. I think Richard sees something in Steve, just like he saw in me. I didn't have any credentials when I came in to drive his Busch cars.

I was tearing everything up and wrecking everything in the Truck Series and running in the middle of the pack, and all the sudden, I'm driving Richard's Busch car and winning races.

	Steve Park's first points race with RCR was the Coke 600. Credit: Autostock

Richard has a good eye for picking people out. It's not like Steve hasn't performed or won races before.

Even this year, if you look at the Busch race he ran, Michael Waltrip spun him out on the first or second lap and he came back to finish fourth or fifth.

He can do it. There's no doubt in my mind. If he couldn't, believe me, he wouldn't be here.

He was just under so much pressure over there at the 1 car, with having Dale Jr. and Michael Waltrip as teammates. And I don't know the whole scenario or what the equipment was like, but I can tell you from everything I hear that he's really happy here with us.

Richard is a straight shooter. He's not going to pat you on the back one day and fire you the next. That's wrong to do somebody that way, and I think it was wrong the way that they handled it -- if that's truly the way it was handled.

I know Richard would never treat him like that. Unless he does something like Jeff (Green) did, and makes his own bed, he'll be told what is going on and how it's going on.

Jeff and I were kind of like two brothers that don't get along, but they have to try around their family.

Jeff and I got along fine, but things just happened and there might have been a little bit of a jealously there on Jeff's part or something.

I don't know, but I can promise you all the stuff about the cars being one way or this being a one-sided team -- that's simply not true. That was an excuse for a bunch of sorry performances, if you ask me.

I think Steve will win here. I think once he gets through this first month, month and a half and gets comfortable with the race team they'll be strong.

The whole organization has already taken him in with open arms, and he's accepted everything that's going on and he fits in good.

He'll help us a ton in our qualifying stuff. He's an awesome qualifier and we're looking forward to soaking up that knowledge. I think Richard just wants him to get on the track he needs to be on and I know we're excited to do everything we can to help him out.

It's going to be a good deal, a real good deal. He already won the Winston Open pole the first time he ever sat in the car.

I think Todd and myself were as happy about that pole as Mike (Beam) and Steve were. That's awesome, man. That car hasn't had a whole lot of success, and that's the great thing about it, is Steve came in and sat on the pole the first time he got in that car and ran good in the race.

He made a little mistake at the beginning of the race, but came back and had a decent finish. That's the good thing about this -- there's not a lot of pressure on Steve from a sponsor standpoint or from Richard's standpoint, because they haven't had a lot of success. So he can come in and try to finish races and start building on something.

We're excited to have him, and more than that excited for him as a person. He needed this fresh start, and I think he'll flourish in it.