Harvick vies for fourth straight Texas fall win: ‘It’s hard to beat confidence’

Whether it’s via race victory or points in the final two races of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 8, Kevin Harvick will likely find himself in the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway. Harvick has a 41-point cushion on the cutline going into Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). But if you’re looking at the recent trend, there’s a decent chance he won’t need to rely on points. The No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing driver has earned the victory in the past three fall races at the 1.5-mile Fort Worth oval. Harvick hasn’t finished worse than 10th since the 2014 spring race. Harvick finished fifth in July at Texas after unconventional strategy allowed Austin Dillon to sneak away with the race win. RELATED: Harvick wins Busch Pole for Texas; see full lineup So, what is it about the fall air in the Lone Star State that makes Harvick so stellar? While Harvick took a light-hearted moment to give credit to track president Eddie Gossage for the track reconfiguration in 2017, which is when the fall-race streak began, he immediately pointed to the strength of his team. “I think as you look at really everything that’s happened at Texas it’s just been A-plus, and when you have that confidence in a race track and the guys have confidence in the setup and the car and the things that they change from year to year, it’s hard to beat confidence,” Harvick said. “There’s always things that can happen, but I truly believe that we’ll go there and have a really fast car and be comfortable the week leading up to it that you made the right decisions because we’ve made a lot of really good decisions there in the past. It’s just been a great place for us.” Going to a race track with a fast car has been Harvick’s M.O. throughout the 2020 season, so there’s no reason to believe that’s going to change on Sunday. There’s a reason for that, with Harvick noting team puts the same amount of preparation and effort into everything, regardless of whether it’s the first race of the season or the 33rd. It’s a belief that Harvick and the crew, led by crew chief Rodney Childers, have adopted from experience in the postseason. “You just have to let the results just be what they are and do the things that you do on a weekly basis in order to just race the same way,” Harvick said. “It’s not a switch that you can flip. We tried that in the beginning and mentally it’s just not the right thing to do because you’re not mentally prepared and mentally trained to think the way that you have to think in the playoffs if you don’t do that on a week-to-week basis.” Harvick currently owns nine victories with three races remaining. On Sunday in Texas, he can make it 10 and eclipse double-digit triumphs in one season for the first time in his 20-year Cup Series career. While Harvick answered a question about advice he would give to a new team owner in the sport, it also happened to explain why the accomplishments have been plentiful this season. “I think the most important thing that you have are people,” Harvick said. “The only way to be great is to have great people. If you have average people, you’re gonna have an average team. If you have good people, you’re gonna have a good team. “If you have great people, it leads to the opportunity to be great, so it’s all about putting the right people in the right places. Obviously, you have to run it to a budget, but I’d rather buy less tires than not have the right people because in the end it’s a scenario that you’re only as good as the people that are surrounding you and that is 100 percent true.” It's clear Harvick has great people and he could be well on his way to a second career championship because of it.