Darlington Raceway’s moniker ‘Too Tough To Tame’ certainly is fitting for Kevin Harvick driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet.
The 2007 Daytona 500 champion, Harvick, is still held winless in Darlington. He’s experienced 17 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts at the challenging 1.366-mile speedway, but has only posted three top five and six top-10 finishes.
However, remarkably, he’s only received one DNF (Did Not Finish) on his resume at Darlington, but still has yet to score the ultimate goal: winning.
“This is one of those, I guess, what would refer to as a crown jewel race.” Harvick explained on Friday in the media center. “(This) is one that’s not sitting in our trophy case, not only that, but it’s just Darlington and this is what NASCAR racing is all about.”
On Saturday at Darlington – during ‘Knockout Qualifying – Harvick saved his tires, as your not able to change tires during the session, and eventually qualified a 26.802 en route to his seventh career Sprint Cup Series pole.
“It all worked out,” Harvick expressed following his pole-winning lap time. “Knockout qualifying paid off for us today. We were able to save the best for last.”
Harvick, with the best starting position for Saturday’s race, is aiming for his first career triumph at Darlington, in his first-career start at the historic track with Stewart-Haas.
“To win here would mean a lot,” Harvick furthered commented. “Hopefully we can keep it together for 500 miles, I believe we have a really fast car and (just) everything has gone well all weekend.”
Harvick’s also already, almost, confirmed his placing in this season’s Chase, after winning at Phoenix International Speedway, giving him and crew chief Rodney Childers to gamble for victories.
However, the past few weekends the team’s been restricted from visiting victory lane after having mechanical failures.
“Since we’ve already won and obviously we feel like we have given away some wins with the failures, (we) just need to keep going about our business.” Harvick explained about the struggles this season, “I think (winning the pole) is good medicine for everybody and proof that everybody just works week to week on what they need to work on and last week is over.”
The Bojangles Southern 500 pre-race show begins at 5:00 PM EST on FOX and Harvick will lead the field to the green flag at 6:45 PM EST – follow @MarshallGabell on Twitter for live updates of the action.
