HOMESTEAD, Fla – Kevin Harvick will be chasing his second career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship on Sunday at Homestead. After Fridays qualifying, Harvick was not satisfied with his No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford in qualifying trim. “We’ve just been off as far as getting the front tires to turn today in qualifying trim and that’s all we’ve done,” Harvick said.
Fresh tires and ill handling, was a concern for the No. 4 team during the first round of qualifying. “The Jimmy John’s Ford was just plowing tight the first time we went out, chattering the tires,” Harvick expressed.
After qualifying 12th, Harvick was obviously disappointed and the car still has time for improvements. “We made it better the second round and then the third round it was just too tight in one and two down there, where we were okay in the first two rounds. We got tight down there and still tight down there, so we’ll go to work on it,” Harvick said.
The track cooled down for qualifying which was in the evening and that really affected Harvick’s car when it came to getting the car to turn as there was less grip on the race track.
Harvick was the lowest after qualifying for the four playoff drivers. But you can expect the No.4 team team to come out swinging on Saturday to get the car to be best it can be in race trim. Arguably with the tough competition, this will be Harvick’s toughest championship to win.
“There’s nothing that’s going to devastate us to the point of not being able to function any more. But to go along with everything you’ve done this year, it definitely would seem fitting to add that to the year end,” Harvick mentioned.
With only one visit per year for NASCAR at Homestead, this makes it a unique challenge for drivers and teams with warm weather and conditions that change during the weekend.
“There’s so many different things here that it’s really hard to put everything together to the point of making your day perfect, because it’s just not going to be perfect. That’s just not the expectation going into it, to think that everything is going to be perfect,” Harvick said.
It’s surprising to hear that Harvick doesn’t expect perfection, but he does want to improve in qualifying.
“We didn’t qualify that good here last year either, so we definitely need to figure out what we’ve got to do in qualifying trim, but hopefully our race stuff is good,” Harvick stated.
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