CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The 2018 schedule for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series has made a slight shuffle to the general sense of order, especially in and around the 10-race playoffs. For former series champ Kevin Harvick, an even more thorough shuffling would suit him just fine.
Harvick’s wide-ranging discussion of the schedule was part of a wide-ranging media availability Tuesday during the NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The 42-year-old driver for Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 4 Ford team talked pit stops, the impact of Danica Patrick in NASCAR and his second calling as a radio host on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. But he spent the most time Tuesday offering a comprehensive examination of the stock-car racing calendar.
RELATED: 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule | What’s new in 2018?
“Do you really want to get me started on schedules?” Harvick said with a devilish grin. After some nodding from reporters, away he went.
NASCAR competition officials made key changes to the Monster Energy Series schedule this season, among them were moving Indianapolis Motor Speedway to the regular-season finale in September, followed by Las Vegas Motor Speedway as the playoffs opener. The postseason also gets an additional short track in Richmond Raceway and its first road course with a modified oval-infield layout at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the Round of 16 — all moves that Harvick noted as positives.
“The one thing that I do like about this season is the fact that the schedule is changing,” Harvick said. “You see Richmond in the playoffs, you see Indy in a date that the fans can actually sit in the grandstands without burning their rear ends off, you see the Charlotte road course. It’s just like the road course: If we don’t ever run the road course again, think about all the conversation that it has created. If you did it every year, it would just be another race.
“Those are the types of things that we need to create. We need to create events; we need to create moments.”
RELATED: Charlotte finalizes road-course layout | Take a lap around the course
If he was granted a magic pen to craft more schedule adjustments, Harvick said he’d go further. That included a possible rotation of the series’ championship race from Homestead-Miami Speedway, which has hosted the season finale since 2002.
“I think it gets stale. It’s a great race track, but it’s not at all about the race track. It’s really about the event,” Harvick says. “How many times have you had a crappy Super Bowl, but everybody goes to the Super Bowl because it’s an event. And those are the types of things that we need to create. I love how we’re starting to mix it up; I think we need to mix it up more. Going to Vegas for the first race of the playoffs is a good move from a market standpoint. It’s a great race track, but the market in itself is something that you have to pay attention to. If you’re going to some of these places and the market is stale, I think all these race tracks should have the opportunity to have one race in the playoffs.”
Some of Harvick’s other proposals included giving tracks in the midst of major renovation projects the option to lease their race dates to other facilities, which would give other markets an audience and speed up the construction process at their own venue. The move would potentially create another wild-card event on the calendar.
Harvick acknowledged that there were some constraints presented by the five-year sanctioning agreement for the 23 Monster Energy Series tracks that continues through the 2020 season. But he added that opportunities exist for ingenuity within those boundaries.
“I think there are things there that you could get creative and really mix it up,” Harvick says. “People don’t like the same thing. You have to keep their attention. It can’t just be about the cars racing on the race track and if you have to have a good race. They are not all going to be good. If you make the schedule exciting and make the events exciting, that is what guarantees you the people to come back if they had a good time.”