Q&A: Kevin Harvick (cont'd)

Q: Can you compare winning at the Brickyard 400 and winning the Daytona 500? Not a whole lot of guys can say they have both trophies in their case.

Harvick: Yeah, it's pretty neat to have been able to win both races. I grew up an IndyCar fan. Just being from Bakersfield, we all wanted to be like Rick Mears and got to grow up with Clint and Casey and those guys racing go-karts.

Personally, to win the Brickyard 400 was really cool. In the end, there's nothing bigger in this country to win than the Daytona 500. To be able to look at that trophy and see your name up there next to a lot of the guys that have won the Daytona 500 before, it's definitely the biggest thing that you can do in the United States in racing.

Q: When did you realize that your teammate Clint Bowyer had flipped like that? What was your reaction?

Harvick: I didn't really know he had flipped until the race was well over into the night. I got to go back and watch it a little bit later that night, realized that he turned over. I talked to him [Monday]. He's fine. That's the main thing is everybody's fine. We can build new cars.

Q: Have you talked to Mark Martin yet?

Harvick: I congratulated him in the media center. I got to see him, do some of my interviews next to him. Mark is a big part of what NASCAR racing is today. He's one of the most fierce competitors in the garage. I've been fortunate to get to know Mark a little better over the last couple years, just understand that he is one of the hardest racers that ever took behind the wheel of NASCAR racing.

It's really neat to be able to race against guys like that and especially against Mark.

Q: With all the PR and the attention you're getting from your win at Daytona, how hard has it been for you to be able to move forward and focus yourself on California?

Harvick: California has been a little bit of a struggle for us as a race team the last couple years. It's probably been one of our worst racetracks, to be honest with you, going in there. We want to go in there and have a solid weekend and see where we fall with everything.

It doesn't get any bigger than the Daytona week. Finding the focus to race the car is usually not a problem for us.

Q: With the past struggles you've had, does that make it more important for you to focus on what you have coming up this weekend?

Harvick: It's something where you learn how to juggle everything. Last week we did more at the racetrack than we ever have done before. I think this week going into California, I don't think it's any more important than any other week. When it comes time to be in the car, as a team, we'll be as focused as we always are.

Q: Jimmie Johnson talked about putting the bad start to the season behind him, focusing on the rest of the year. From your perspective, do you make sure you don't get too high from the win and focus on the rest of the year?

Harvick: Yeah, you really can't. You have to kind of keep yourself even-keeled across the board to really focus on racing for the championship. No matter how high it gets, how bad it gets, you have to forget what happened last week and concentrate on the week at hand. (Continued)