Two-time 2015 race winner: ‘I feel like we’re competitive every week’
CONCORD, N.C. – Kevin Harvick didn’t win Saturday night’s Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the Stewart-Haas Racing driver wasn’t leading at the end of any segment.
But that doesn’t mean the defending Sprint Cup Series champion doesn’t like his chances heading into next weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 (May 24, 6 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM) at Charlotte.
Given his ability to thread his way through traffic throughout the 110-lap non-points event, it’s no wonder.
Harvick, already twice a winner this season and once again the series points leader, finished second in Saturday’s race, his No. 4 Chevrolet able to work its way around everyone save for the Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin.
“I kind of put us in a hole in qualifying,” Harvick said. “We were able to get through traffic; they made some really good changes throughout the night to get the car where it really needed to be.
“I was able to move around the race track and find a groove that worked for me.”
Harvick started at the back of the 20-car field, but wasted no time advancing. He was inside the top 10 by the end of the first segment and challenging for the lead by the end of the second.
Solid work by the team, led by crew chief Rodney Childers, allowed Harvick to maintain his position on pit road and unlike a few other key players, the team ended the night penalty-free.
“I feel like we’re competitive every week,” he said. “Tonight … we were able to make it up into the top 10. Then they made some great adjustments on the car and we were able to drive through the top five cars and pass them.
“That’s an accomplishment … where we’re at with the cars, how you have to race them, the things that are happening. If you can pass, that’s a huge advantage, something I feel like they did a really good job with our car in making it drivable.”
Harvick is a two-time winner of the 600 (2011, ’13), the series’ longest event, and won the fall race, the Bank of America 500, last year as well.
Six-time series champion Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick Motorsports) has won three of the four points races held on intermediate (1.5-mile) tracks this year. Harvick has finished second to Johnson in all three – and he won the fourth, at Las Vegas.
The team’s 1.5-mile program obviously remains as strong as it was a year ago, if not better.
Passing was at a premium during the All-Star event, but Harvick managed to do his share.
“You got to have your car right,” he said. “The restarts are really tough because everybody’s got so much throttle, you’re so close to sliding the nose.
“If you move up too far, the back will come out from underneath you because everybody’s got so much throttle on the car, so it makes it tough to pass until you get to 10, 12 laps into the run.”