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The Real Deal: Harvick In Control Heading To Chicagoland
Jul 8th
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series begins the
second half of the 2010 season with Kevin Harvick
(No. 29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet) leading the
standings and his Richard Childress Racing teammates
not far behind.
Any notion that Havick’s resurgence was cosmetic,
evaporated last Saturday at Daytona International
Speedway, where he nabbed his second win of
2010 and second career victory at Daytona.
Teammate Jeff Burton (No. 31 Caterpillar
Chevrolet) finished fifth and sits eighth in the standings.
Though he finished 17th due to a last-laps shuffle,
Clint Bowyer (No. 33 Cheerios/Hamburger
Helper Chevrolet), nearly beat the other two; he
hovers just outside the top 12, in 14th place.
So it’s Harvick out front as the series prepares
for Saturday night’s LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland
Speedway — the third race in the 10-event
Race to the Chase, the summer stretch that sets the
field for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Use ink when you inscribe Harvick’s name. He’s
not going away. But he can’t be satisfied if he hopes
to catch series wins leaders Jimmie Johnson (No.
48 Lowe’s Chevrolet) and Denny Hamlin (No. 11
FedEx Ground Toyota) when it comes to Chase
bonus points. Hamlin and Johnson each have five
wins thus far; Harvick has two.
“With our current situation in the points, we are
going to do all we can to give ourselves an opportunity
to win each week,” Harvick said.
His Chase competitors should note his Chicagoland record: two wins, five top fives and six top 10s. He’s
similarly strong in NASCAR Nationwide Series competition there, with two victories in that series.
“Every time we go back there it seems like it just fits our program and my driving style and everything
that we do,” said Harvick, who’s enjoying a rebirth in his 10th NASCAR Sprint Cup season, all with RCR.
Thus far, he’s led the standings for a career-high 13 weeks, including the last nine consecutively. The
recent decision to re-sign with RCR quieted any lingering distraction, and last year’s dreadful team performance
(Harvick finished 19th, Burton 17th and Bowyer 15th) has turned blessing-in-disguise.
Significant in-house reorganization, the installation of Burton’s former crew chief, Scott Miller, in a director
of competition role, and overall rededication have yielded a serious challenge to Hendrick Motorsports’
and Johnsons’ four-time and reigning series champion dominance.
Sustaining it is in Harvick & Company’s hands.
“He’s still the champion, and he’s still the guy to beat,” Harvick said. “For us, we’ve just got to keep
working hard. We’re in a fortunate position with the start to our season, that we’ve got a plan to keep working
on our cars and keep trying to make things better. Hopefully when the stress starts with ten weeks to go, we’ll
be as ready as we’ve ever been from the 29 and an RCR standpoint to make a strong run at it “
Harvick Returning To Daytona Atop Series Standings
Jun 30th
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Kevin Harvick started the
season by rolling into Daytona International Speedway’s
Victory Lane. Granted, his repeat victory in the Budweiser
Shootout back in February awarded no points in the NASCAR
Sprint Cup Series standings.
But there was another benefit.
The win branded Harvick (No. 29 Shell Pennzoil Chevrolet)
as a potential championship contender, while serving
notice that the slump experienced by Richard Childress
Racing teams in 2009 was very old news.
Coming into Saturday night’s return to Daytona, the
Coke Zero 400, Harvick has plenty of points, enough to be
leading the series standings. He also has plenty of confidence
when it comes to racing on the 2.5-mile Daytona high
banks. In addition to winning the Budweiser Shootout the last
two years, he also captured the sport’s biggest prize, the
Daytona 500, in 2007.
Harvick leads four-time defending series champion
Jimmie Johnson (No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet) by 105 points
coming into Saturday night’s event, which is the 18th race of
the season and the second in the “Race to the Chase” — the
10-race stretch that precedes the “Chase for the NASCAR
Sprint Cup.”
Harvick’s lead carries a surprising footnote: he has battled
to the top of the points while winning only one race other
than the shootout — at Talladega Superspeedway in April.
Consistency has carried him thus far. He has a serieshigh
12 top-10 finishes. His seven top fives are tied for second-
best this season. The points-paying highlights in addition
to his Talladega win: runner-up finishes at Auto Club Speedway
and Las Vegas Motor Speedway and third-place runs at
Richmond International Raceway and Infineon Raceway.
Last year at this juncture in the season, Harvick was
27th in the series standings. Now he comes to Daytona’s
annual summer classics as one of three RCR drivers in the
top 15. (Jeff Burton is eighth, Clint Bowyer 15th).
“It’s awesome to see the 180‑degree turn that the whole
organization has taken,” Harvick said, “and that credit has to go to Richard for making the management
changes and the structure changes throughout the organization to use the tools that we have correctly.
And he kind of stepped back and really just let everybody do their job …. let all of the crew chiefs really
work on the competition side of it. Really, it’s just Richard making the key moves towards the end of last
year to get everybody headed in the right direction.”

