Kevin Harvick
No. 29 Budweiser Designate a Driver Chevrolet
GEICO 400 at Chicagoland Speedway
Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest:
Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Designate a Driver Chevrolet team travel to Joliet, Ill., this weekend for Sunday’s GEICO 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Chicagoland Speedway.
Designate a Driver… Harvick’s No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet will feature a special “Designate a Driver” paint scheme this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway in support of Anheuser-Busch’s worldwide effort to promote the responsible enjoyment of the company’s beers with “Global Be(er) Responsible Day.” Friday, September 21, will mark 30 years of Anheuser-Busch’s leadership in alcohol responsibility. Anheuser-Busch employees will canvas street corners, place signs in their yards and visit restaurants, bars and grocery stores to spread the message. Adults are encouraged to join Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Designate a Driver team in the Nation of Responsible drinkers by taking the pledge at www.NationOfResponsibleDrinkers.com.
In the Chase for a Championship… Sunday’s race at Chicagoland Speedway kicks off the 2012 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Harvick starts the Chase seeded ninth in the standings. He’s 12 points back from the top spot and just six markers out of the top five.
Chase Across America…As the 12 Chase drivers head to different markets this week as part of NASCAR’s “Chase Across America” program, Harvick visited Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway on Tuesday to help promote next month’s Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500. From there he traveled to Chicago where he and the other Chase drivers will participate in media interviews and the NASCAR Contenders Live fan event on Wednesday at the House of Blues. Fans can purchase tickets to the event for $10 and SPEED will air a special one-hour television broadcast of the event on Thursday, September 13 at 7 p.m. ET.
Meet Harvick…Race fans in the Chicagoland Speedway area can meet Harvick on Thursday, September 13. He will be at Dominick’s Grocery Store, located at 19965 S. LaGrange Road, in Frankfort, Ill., from 4:30 – 6 p.m. CT. Fans can contact the store for more details on wristband distribution.
Chassis Info… The No. 29 team will utilize chassis No. 396 from the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) stable this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway. Harvick raced this car to a 16th-place finish at Pocono Raceway in August.
Harvick at Chicagoland… In 11 starts at Chicagoland, Harvick has earned two wins (2001 and 2002), six top fives and seven top-10 finishes. He has completed 99.4 percent of the laps run at Chicagoland Speedway (2,923 of 2,940 laps) and has led 282 laps there as well. Harvick’s average start at the track is 17.4 and his average finish there is 10.4.
Chicagoland Loop Data… Since the implementation of NASCAR’s Loop Data Statistics, Harvick has competed in seven NSCS races at Chicagoland Speedway and holds an impressive set of marks entering this weekend’s event, including: third in Fastest Drivers Late in a Run; third in Speed in Traffic; fourth in Green Flag Speed; fourth in Laps in the Top 15 (1,361 laps/72.7 percent); fifth in Average Running Position (12.1); fifth in Driver Rating (98.5); sixth in Closers; sixth in Fastest Drivers Early in a Run; sixth in Laps Led (94); and seventh in Fastest on Restarts.
In the Rearview Mirror… Last weekend Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team scored a 10th-place finish in the rain-delayed event at Richmond International Raceway.
Last Year… In last year’s race at Chicagoland Speedway, Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team started 30th and went on to score a second-place finish. The Bakersfield, Calif., driver left the race weekend with the points lead in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
For the online version of the Budweiser Racing media guide, please visit .
Follow along each weekend with Harvick and the team on Twitter. Check out @KevinHarvick for behind-the-scenes information straight from the driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet. Get live updates from the track each weekend from @Black29Car, the PR team for Harvick. Also, follow @RCRracing and @RCR29KHarvick for additional information about the Richard Childress Racing organization. Fans can also interact with Harvick on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/OfficialKevinHarvick.
Harvick talks about racing at Chicagoland Speedway with Budweiser’s “Designate a Driver” paint scheme and the start of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup:
Thirty years ago Anheuser-Busch launched the company’s first national responsible drinking campaign. What does it mean to you to carry the “Designate a Driver” message on your No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet at Chicagoland Speedway? “First of all I think it’s a privilege to drink a Budweiser and I think we all share the responsibility. I think Anheuser-Busch recognized that there’s a huge responsibility that comes with drinking. To carry the Designate a Driver scheme on the car at Chicago, I look at it as something that sends a great message to the people in the grandstands and on TV to drink responsibly, because it is a privilege to drink. Anytime you are drinking you need to designate a driver and do it responsibly.”
How do you guys attack the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup this year? “We don’t have anything to lose. The last few years we’ve been expected to race for a championship. This year the expectations are low going in because of the mediocre year we’ve had. Even though we’ve had a mediocre year, we’re still standing here talking about being in the Chase and racing for a championship so I think that says a lot about the team and theorganization, and just getting in there and making the most out of our days.”
What are your thoughts going into this year’s Chase? “It’s all about momentum. In this sport we’ve seen it and in other sports we’ve seen it. We saw it with Tony (Stewart) last year. We just don’t know. We don’t know how it’s all going to turn out. We’ve got to go race some races and I know I feel a lot better about where we are the last few weeks than I did three months ago.”
Are there any unknowns for you with tracks coming up that we’ve haven’t raced at this year? “Well I feel like even though the year hasn’t gone the way we wanted it to, at the beginning we ran decent. We ran well at Dover (International Speedway) and decent at Loudon (New Hampshire Motor Speedway) and Charlotte (Motor Speedway). There are a lot of tracks in the Chase that we have a pretty good notebook for. Hopefully when we apply some of the things that we feel like we needed to do different over the last few weeks, everything will keep clicking and we’ll keep moving forward. Everybody’s confidence is up right now and we know that things are getting back to the way they need to be.”
What is more important to you – consistency or wins? “You don’t know how this whole thing is going to play out. You don’t go in expecting to win five races and win the championship, so it’s one of those deals where it could be a Chase where someone does that again or it could be a Chase where someone goes and has top fives every week and doesn’t make a mistake and wins the championship. You’ve got to get into it and see how it all plays out.”
Harvick’s Career Record at Chicagoland Speedway:
Chicagoland Speedway Track Facts: Track Length: 1.5 miles Race Length: 267 laps/400 miles Grandstand Seating Capacity: 70,000 First Race: July 15, 2001 Banking in Turns: 18 degrees Banking on Tri-Oval: 11 degrees Banking on Backstretch: 5 degrees Frontstretch: 2,400 feet Backstretch: 1,700 feet TV: ESPN, 2 p.m. ET Radio: MRN Radio affiliates, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio
