Despite No Wins, Kevin Harvick's Sprint Cup Title Defense Off to Strong Start

Pop quiz:

Who is the hottest driver in the Sprint Cup Series right now? (Careful, this is a bit of a trick question.)

Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano, you say?

Nope.

Atlanta winner Jimmie Johnson?

Try again.

What about Dale Earnhardt Jr., who has finished third in the first two races?

Wrong.

OK, before you drive yourself crazy, the hottest driver going is Kevin Harvick.

What?

Yes, somehow, Harvick has become somewhat of a forgotten man. But the statistics bear out that he has been and continues to be the hottest driver in the circuit.

Now here’s where the trick part of the question comes in: Harvick has been the best-performing driver in the last five races, dating back to the end of last season.

If you start with last fall’s Chase race at Texas, Harvick has been on fire. No other driver comes close to the success the driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet has enjoyed.

At Texas—better known as the place where Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski exchanged punches after the race—Harvick finished second.

Then in the next two races, Phoenix and the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he went to Victory Lane both times.

And, of course, he capped off the 2014 season as the Sprint Cup champion.

Tack on his runner-up finishes thus far this season at Daytona and Atlanta, and Harvick now has two wins and three runner-up showings in his last five races.

Again, no other driver comes close.

Which leads to the premise of this column. Even without a win thus far in 2015, Harvick continues to be the most dominant driver there is.

Having arguably the fastest, strongest and most competitive race car in 2014, Harvick and crew chief Rodney Childers have more than picked up in 2015 where they left off after last year’s dream season.

Sure, Harvick had a good chance to win Sunday’s race, which would have given him a weekend sweep, having won Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway (AMS).

Sunday, Harvick earned the outside pole (only to be forced to start at the back of the pack after his engine blew up in Saturday’s final practice, leading to an engine change).

Then he went on to lead 116 laps, tops among all drivers in Sunday’s 325-lap event.

“All in all, it was a great day for our team,” Harvick said in a Chevrolet media release.

And indeed, it was a great day, although to be fair, Johnson led 92 laps himself en route to victory. His win was not a one- or two-lap burst to the checkers at the finish. He most definitely earned his 71st career win.

Had Harvick not been caught up in poor back-to-back restarts the last two times in the race, he very possibly could have caught and passed Johnson for the checkered flag.

And last week at Daytona, while he didn’t lead even one lap, Harvick was like a shark all race, hanging around near the front, waiting to strike. He tried to do so on the final lap and was indeed closing on Logano when a caution flag came out, essentially locking up Logano’s win without a final front-stretch shootout.

I’ll repeat myself again: When you have two wins and three runner-up finishes in the last five races you’ve competed in, as well as earning the season championship, it doesn’t matter if this is a new season.

As Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said about the way Harvick won last year’s Chase championship:

"

Once in that 10-race playoff, he showed himself supremely equipped for the most win-or-go-fishing format yet contrived by NASCAR. If having to race to win the season’s last two races is what it took to claim this championship, then Harvick would do it.

"

For all intents and purposes, Harvick truly has picked up in 2015 where he left off at the end of 2014. It’s not a matter of if he’ll win a race this season, it’s more a matter of when.

Perhaps as early as this coming Sunday in Las Vegas.

Until the time he takes his first checkered flag of 2015—and likely the first of several checkered flags to come in the remaining 34 races—if Harvick keeps recording runner-up finishes, really, is there anything wrong with that?

We all know that Ricky Bobby said in Talladega Nights: "If you're not first, you're last."

But given how hot Harvick remains—and likely will continue to be—he’s showing that finishing second is not the first loser, but the next-best winner.

Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski