Kevin Harvick's Early NASCAR Domination Won't Do Him Much Good Come Chase Time
Four races into the season, reigning Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick has perpetuated his mastery of NASCAR. He’s not perfect. He’s only won half the races.
In the other two, he plummeted to second.
All is well. Remain calm. Each week, 42 other cars are on the track. Some of them are bound to get faster.
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Nothing’s wrong with dominating the series now. Harvick’s fourth straight Phoenix International Raceway victory, and fifth in his last six tries, was hardly unexpected. He started where he finished and led 224 out of 312 laps. The Fox pre-race show listed his Vegas odds at 2-1. No one who bet him won much.
When September rolls around, though, the silk Harvick is weaving will be withered, worn and no more useful than a dish rag. Of course, he may well have weaved more silk by then.
The antidote to Harvick’s specific superiority and that of other Chevy drivers in general is simple. In fact, it’s essential. It’s fundamental. It’s obvious. It’s so simple, it’s stupid.
Trailing Harvick across the finish line were a line of drivers whose cars cut similar swaths through the desert air. Jamie McMurray, Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne and Kurt Busch all drove Chevrolets of the racing Impala marque.
“We just didn’t quite have the speed,” said Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano, who finished eighth, in post-race remarks distributed by Ford.
Logano also said he and his team couldn’t keep up with changing track conditions.
His teammate, and best in class, Brad Keselowski (sixth), added, “We have to keep working to find more speed. There are a lot of Chevys up there, and we need to get our Fords running a tiny bit better.
“We didn’t really have the speed we needed to run with the ‘4’ (Harvick) and ‘41’ (Kurt Busch). … We just have to find more speed.”
| Driver | Wins | Top-5 | Avg. Finish | Points |
| Kevin Harvick | 2 | 4 | 1.5 | 182 |
| Jimmie Johnson | 1 | 2 | 14.5 | 124 |
| Brad Keselowski | 0 | 0 | 15.8 | 116 |
| Matt Kenseth | 0 | 1 | 16.2 | 113 |
| Jeff Gordon | 0 | 0 | 25.2 | 77 |
| Kurt Busch | 0 | 1 | 5.0 | 39 |
| Tony Stewart | 0 | 0 | 36.0 | 32 |
Obviously, this is more complicated than it sounds. It’s a serious problem, though, this lack of speed. The most recent Toyota victory was a mere 30 races ago.
“I think we’ve all seen it in other sports,” McMurray said in the post-race media conference. “I remember the days when Jeff Gordon would win 13 races in a year. I remember watching every week. It was incredible.
“I think our sport is much tougher now to do that in. … But, yeah, they’re (Harvick et al.) on a roll.”
Harvick knows his team “gets it,” whatever “it” is.
“I think, when you look at the start of the year, we know each other so much better,” he said to Fox TV. “I just feel like the bond between this team is really special. Rodney Childers (crew chief) and myself and the engineers and everybody get along so good.
“It’s almost scary how well things are going.”
Almost. The opposition is wary, regrouping and only a little taken aback. In the panorama of the entire season, what has taken place to date is only going to be a footnote. It’s not like long-ago days when the entire season directly produced the champion. It’s not even like two years ago, before the expanded Chase and graduated means of narrowing the contenders to the final race.
No matter how often Harvick wins now, in the final race of the season, his chance at the championship is, like last year, going to be based on one in four. No matter how many victories he piles up, he will start the final race dead even with three others.
What’s happening now is almost wasted effort, though, the money is nice.
Kurt Busch didn’t even get any points until Sunday, having been suspended due to his off-track difficulties. He began his postponed season impressively, finishing fifth. If he wins one of the next 22, he will probably make the Chase. All he has to do is get to the top 30 in points to be Chase-eligible (with a win).
“Now we go to Fontana,” said the reinstated and uninjured Busch brother in a media conference. “The ‘41’ car, it’s got a top-five finish already this year.”
In one try. Not as good as Stewart-Haas teammate Harvick, but not bad.
Meanwhile, in the “good problems to have” department, Childers opined in the media conference, “I think, at this point, everybody just expects you to keep winning. That’s what makes it hard on us. Yeah, we’ve got a team that can do that. We have a driver who can do that. We have the resources to do that.
“The more you win, the more you expect out of yourself and the more pressure you put on yourself.”
Relax. It’s obvious to everyone else in the sport. Slow down. You move too fast.
All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.
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