The offseason gears of change are still churning at Stewart-Haas Racing with the customary preparations before the new season dawns. But the early plans for SHR this year go far beyond paint schemes and subtle aerodynamic tweaks, and even former NASCAR premier series champion Kevin Harvick has the mildest reservations about how smooth a transition it might be.
Harvick addressed Stewart-Haas Racing‘s switch from Chevrolet to Ford for 2017 on Thursday after a holiday shopping spree at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet in Matthews, North Carolina to help families displaced by fire. Harvick’s foundation partnered with the Charlotte Fire Department to host the charitable event for the second straight year.
While that relationship continues, Harvick’s long-running association with Chevy will end next season when he pilots SHR’s No. 4 Ford for the first time. The organization’s behind-the-scenes work to bring its four-car fleet under the blue oval banner has been extraordinary, and Harvick says he’s cautiously optimistic that the overhaul will go over largely without a hitch.
“I think we’d be crazy to think there’s not going to be some bumps in the road just because there’s a lot of things that are changing,” Harvick said. “But I think with the amount of people that we have to go through the transition and do the things that we need to do, I couldn’t ask for a better group of people. It’s a bunch of racers, and I think it’s going to be a long winter, but with a group of racers like we have, we should hopefully fire off where we have been.”
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The move, announced in February, means that Stewart-Haas Racing will no longer rely on an alliance with Hendrick Motorsports for chassis and engines. SHR will have its own in-house chassis developed for the 2017 season plus power from Roush Yates Engines.
“I’m sure that the big parts and pieces will have already had a plan to be adjusted right and we have a plan to work toward that,” Harvick said, “but I think it’ll be all the knickknack stuff that you don’t expect that you’ll probably have to spend the most time worrying about and coming up with a spur-of-the-moment plan. I think everybody’s got a great frame of mind at Stewart-Haas Racing because for us, it’s a huge opportunity to kind of step out of that box.”
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The manufacturer swap isn’t the only significant change coming to Stewart-Haas Racing next season. Clint Bowyer will step into the organization’s flagship No. 14 as the replacement for team co-owner Tony Stewart, who retired from full-time competition at the end of 2016.
The addition to the driver lineup will mark a reunion for both Bowyer and Harvick, who were teammates in the sport’s top series at Richard Childress Racing from 2006-11.
“I’m really excited about Clint just because I’ve known Clint since the first time that he sat in a car at RCR, I was there with him,” Harvick said. “So I know a lot about Clint. Clint and I are really good friends, and he is cut from that same Stewart-Haas racer mold that everybody there is pretty much cut by.”
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As for Stewart, Harvick said, there’s been little slowing down as he steps away from full-time racing in NASCAR.
“You know, I asked Tony, I said, ‘So what’re you going to do to relax?’ ” Harvick said. “He’s like, ‘Relax? I’ve got to go to this dirt race and that dirt race,’ and I’m like, ‘I thought the whole point of retirement was to take some time off and unwind,’ but apparently it means going to dirt races and sitting on the tractor and plowing up the dirt and making sure it’s good for the racers. Sounds like he’s going to be a track operator, a promoter, and all the things in between this winter.”