Kevin Harvick, Tony Stewart swap pit crews

“We made this change in the best interests of the entire organization,” SHR Vice President of Competition Greg Zipadelli said. “Our primary goal is to win races and championships, and this pit crew swap provides championship experience to the No. 4 team and continued race-winning experience to the No. 14 team.”

With the 10-race Chase kicking off this weekend as Chicagoland Speedway hosts the MyAFibStory.com 400 (ESPN, 2 p.m. ET), Harvick could be in the best position to capture his first Sprint Cup title. Mechanical issues that kept the 38-year-old outside the top 20 in points through the first eight races have been addressed and his team continues to bring one of the fastest cars to the track each weekend.

If there has been a soft spot in the system, it might be found on pit road. Harvick raced his way into the lead twice during the early stages of Saturday night’s race at Richmond, only to lose the position during subsequent pit stops.

“I can’t fix them, but it’s probably the biggest thing that we have to fix in order to contend for the championship,” he said afterward. “I think our cars are as fast as they need to be. The guys do a great job of bringing fast cars every week. It’s just one mistake after another every week on pit road.”

Harvick is making his eighth Chase appearance and his fifth in a row. His best points finish has been third, which he accomplished in 2010, ’11 and ’13 while competing for Richard Childress Racing.

He enters this year’s Chase seeded sixth among the 16 drivers in the field.

He was the first to win multiple races this season in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, making him the first to all but officially lock himself into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

But Harvick’s No. 4 Chevrolet hasn’t been to Victory Lane since his victory at Darlington Raceway in April. Not that the team hasn’t been close. Harvick has finished second five times through this year’s first 26 races, the most of any driver. He also was the runner-up in the Sprint All-Star Race, a non-points event.

NASCAR measures how long teams spend on pit road during each race, and race winners typically are among the top five in the least amount of time. When he won at Phoenix, Harvick spent less time on pit road than any of the 43 drivers in the field. At Darlington, his total time was sixth best.

Sometimes a loss of track position on pit road, whether due to a driver or crew-induced penalty or simply a slow stop, can be overcome on the race track. Often, however, it creates a frustrating scenario in which a driver has to maneuver around other cars he or she had already worked around previously, or it puts the driver in greater danger of getting swept up in someone else’s troubles.

Such was the case for Harvick earlier this year at Sonoma Raceway. After leading twice for 23 laps, a slow stop in the second half of the race dropped him outside the top 10. A chain-reaction incident at Lap 82 collected the No. 4 entry, and Harvick was left to hobble home with a 20th-place finish.

He was dominant at Atlanta, leading 195 of 335 laps, but repeatedly lost the lead on pit road.

And although he rolls into this weekend’s race on the heels of a fifth-place finish at Richmond, he said at Richmond that the problems on pit road needed to be addressed before the Chase got under way.

“Hopefully they have a plan as to what they think they need to do in the shop with the two teams in the Chase, but that’s not my department,” he said.

Now, it seems, that plan has been put into place.

The No. 4 team pit crew will now be:
Front Tire Changer: Ira Jo Hussey | Hometown: Manchester, New Hampshire
Front Tire Carrier: Todd Drakulich | Hometown: Tucson, Arizona
Jackman: Mike Casto | Hometown: Proctor, West Virginia
Rear Tire Changer: Daniel Smith | Hometown: Concord, North Carolina
Rear Tire Carrier: Mike Morneau | Hometown: Oxford, Maine

All were members Stewart’s pit crew when he captured the 2011 Sprint Cup championship.

Moving over to the No. 14 team:
Front Tire Changer: Bryan Jacobsen | Hometown: Honesdale, Pennsylvania
Front Tire Carrier: Brett Morrell | Hometown: Windham, Maine
Rear Tire Changer: Jonathan Sherman | Hometown: Monroe, Louisiana
Jackman: Getty Cavitt, Jr. | Hometown: Owensboro, Kentucky
Rear Tire Carrier: Josh Sobecki | Hometown: New Kensington, Pennsylvania

Harvick will be joined in the Chase by SHR teammate Kurt Busch, the 2004 Sprint Cup champion and a winner at Martinsville Speedway earlier this year. In addition to Stewart, SHR’s Danica Patrick also failed to qualify for the 16-driver postseason field.

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