How Leaving Richard Childress Racing Has Kevin Harvick on the Cusp of a Title

As the old saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side.

That axiom seems to be both true and quite appropriate for Kevin Harvick, who has had arguably the best season of his Sprint Cup career in 2014.

It took leaving Richard Childress Racing after 13 years for Harvick to find himself standing on the edge with his new organization, Stewart-Haas Racing, just one race from what he has fought so hard for year after year: to become a Sprint Cup champion.

And as we head into this weekend's race, Harvick is the odds-on favorite to win the championship in my mind. While all four Chase finalists are hungry for the championship, Harvick is by far the most ravenous and starved for one.

It's not that Harvick didn’t have success at RCR. He won 23 races there, finished third three different seasons (including his final campaign in 2013) and overall had six top-five and three other top-10 season finishes.

But staying at RCR essentially left Harvick like a hamster on a treadmill: He kept rolling and rolling but never could get himself to the finish.

Part of that could be because of the overall supremacy of rival Hendrick Motorsports over the last decade, with six championships in the last eight seasons (seven if you count the crown won by satellite team Stewart-Haas Racing and Tony Stewart in 2011).

Plus, while RCR once was a formidable organization in the 1980s and 1990s, it had fallen on hard times over the last decade. Performance wasn't there, wins weren't there and even a winning attitude or confidence seemed in less supply than at other organizations such as HMS, SHR, Joe Gibbs Racing and others.

Harvick can’t necessarily be blamed for leaving RCR. He gave the organization everything he had. He was loyal to a fault, renewing his contract several times to stay there.

But as one season turned into another, the end result always wound up the same: Harvick, one of the most competitive drivers in the sport, continually watched someone else win the championship.

At the age of 37 last year, he knew 40 years old was right around the corner, and like Dale Earnhardt Jr., who did turn 40 this season, Harvick really had nothing to show for it.

Finally, after feeling he had done all he could for RCR, Harvick came to the point where it was time to do something for himself.

Enter SHR; exit RCR.

When one of Harvick’s best friends in the sport, Tony Stewart, suggested he take his talents to SHR, Harvick weighed loyalty vs. opportunity.

The latter won out, particularly since Stewart himself had won his third Sprint Cup championship in 2011, having moved to SHR two years earlier.

SHR’s affiliation with Hendrick Motorsports certainly helped: From 2006 through 2013, HMS won six Sprint Cup championships outright, all by Jimmie Johnson. And you can essentially make it seven Cup crowns in total in that period if you include Stewart’s title in 2011.

There’s no question Harvick has had a stellar season in his first year driving for Stewart and team co-owner Gene Haas. In the first 35 races of 2014, Harvick has four wins, 13 top-five and 19 top-10 finishes.

He also has a career-high eight pole positions, a significant aberration considering he had six poles—in total—in his previous 13 seasons.

And in another aberration, Harvick to date this season has led 2,083 laps—the most of any of the four championship finalists. It's quite significant that Harvick had a total of 4,426 laps led through his first 13 Sprint Cup seasons combined.

“I think for us as a team, I think everybody has just really hit it off, and I think with (crew chief) Rodney Childers and the cars and things that they’re putting on the race track, those guys just do a great job on a week-to-week basis,” Harvick said at Wednesday’s NASCAR Chase Championship media day in Doral, Florida.

Had it not been for numerous mistakes on pit road in several races this season, it’s not hard to imagine Harvick might have earned several more wins in 2014.

Things got so bad that Harvick and SHR made perhaps the most surprising move of any of the 16 teams that initially qualified for this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup.

When it became clear that Stewart would not make the Chase, it was decided to take his topnotch pit crew and essentially trade it to Harvick’s team, with the latter’s crew moving to Stewart’s team for the remainder of the season.

That move has paid significant dividends and next to Harvick’s innate talent and ability is probably the prime reason why the man with the nickname of “Happy” is feeling that way so much heading into the season finale.

While there had been some movement of crew chiefs during Harvick's tenure at RCR, the organization just didn't have the depth to pick up and switch crew chiefs or whole pit crews when things went from bad to worse. Typically, drivers such as Harvick were left to fend for themselves and work with what they had, be it crew chief, pit crew, equipment and the like.

Had Harvick remained at RCR and not taken up Stewart on his offer to emigrate to SHR, Harvick may very well have not been at the level today with RCR as he has become at SHR. Had he stayed at RCR, who knows how few races Harvick would have won. Maybe he would have been shut out of Victory Lane in 2014 like fellow Chase finalist Ryan Newman has been.

All he's ever wanted was one real good chance to win the championship. Now he has it.

Plus, with the points having been reset, Harvick, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin and Newman are all on the same page coming into Sunday’s race.

And in perhaps one of the biggest ironies of the season, Newman, who essentially replaced Harvick at RCR, also finds himself in the spot Harvick had coveted for so long with his old team.

You can best believe Harvick will be keeping his eye on Newman and vice versa if for no other reason than ego.

For the only race this season, none of the four drivers has to worry about points; they simply have one collective goal in mind: to win the race. And if one of them indeed wins the race, he’ll also have won the championship.

“I think the biggest key for this whole scenario is you’re not behind,” Harvick said. “You’re on even footing with the other three guys.

“So for us, I think we’ve had a great year. We’ve led a bunch of laps and won races and done what we’ve needed to do, and all in all, it’s just been a great year. I’m looking forward to Sunday afternoon.”

Harvick’s game plan in Sunday’s season-ending Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway is pretty simple: Get out front and stay in front, much the same way he won this past Sunday’s penultimate race at Phoenix International Raceway that assured his advancement to the championship round.

“I don’t plan on racing any of them,” Harvick said. “I just want to beat them all and try and stay in front of them so we don’t have to put ourselves in position all day.

“You ask if we were going to plan it out, that would be how I would plan it out. The rest of it, we’ll just have to see how it comes from the rest of the race on. Do what you have to do, I guess.”

All quotes used are via official NASCAR transcripts from Wednesday’s Chase Championship media day.

Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski