RCR should be better, but good enough for Harvick?

CONCORD, N.C. -- He has been at Richard Childress Racing for 11 years, nine of them as driver of the team's flagship vehicle, and in many ways Kevin Harvick's stern gaze has become the face of the organization in the post-Dale Earnhardt era. He was, after all, the man they rallied around in those trying weeks in early 2001, the driver who buoyed their spirits with an emotional victory at Atlanta, the figure who helped restore a certain measure of the program's former prominence. It's difficult to imagine an RCR without him.

Kevin Harvick's victory at Atlanta in March 2001 allowed a team to honor a legend and begin to heal.

And yet that separation may very well be nearing, a product of performance lapses that kept RCR out of both Victory Lane and the Chase last year, and led Harvick to speak openly about seeking new pastures once his current contract expires at the end of this season. No question, RCR made marked improvements during the final weeks of the 2009 campaign, when a flurry of personnel moves and technological changes at last bore fruit. There is real confidence that this outfit can return to championship status in 2010. And yet, would it all be enough to entice Harvick to stay?

"It will all just happen how it's meant to happen," the driver of the No. 29 car said Tuesday during the preseason Media Tour. "I'm not going to touch that side of it. They'll all talk and do their things behind the scenes. I just want to be the driver. I don't want to get into a big political war with anybody."

Publicly, at least, that's the way Harvick has handled the issue since news of his potential departure broke last summer -- coyly, as if he knows the answers but isn't willing to share them. Only in a few interviews has he explicitly expressed his intention to possibly "turn the page," as he put it, following this year. And yet there he was Tuesday morning, sitting to Childress' immediate right during the RCR portion of the Media Tour, playing the good soldier, saying all the correct things about the moves the team has made to right itself since its unexpected plummet into mediocrity early last season. Obviously, there are issues still yet to be worked out. But it all makes you wonder.

Will Harvick stay, or will he go?

"This is what I can tell you," teammate Jeff Burton said, in his best professorial tone. "I can tell you that Kevin Harvick wants to be part of an organization that consistently does what it takes to win championships. That's what Kevin Harvick wants. If Kevin Harvick in June, July, or September looks at RCR and the way RCR is doing things and believes that he's going to have the best chance to be successful at RCR, then he'll be at RCR. If he looks around and thinks, no, that's not the case, he's going to be somewhere else. That's just the way it is. I can't speak for Kevin, and I'm not about to speak for Kevin. I don't know what Kevin is going to do. The only thing I know is that Kevin wants to be in a situation that allows him to be successful, like any car owner, like any driver, like any crew member." (Continued)