KEVIN HARVICK
Las Vegas Advance
No. 4 Subway Delivery Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing
Event Overview
● Event: South Point 400 (Round 30 of 36)
● Time/Date: 7 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Sept. 26
● Location: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
● Layout: 1.5-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 267 laps/400.5 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 80 laps / Final Stage: 107 laps
● TV/Radio: NBCSN / PRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Notes of Interest
● Subway® restaurants has joined with Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 team of Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) to put its Eat Fresh Refresh™ on the fast track by becoming a primary sponsor of the championship-winning NASCAR Cup Series team. The world’s largest quick-service restaurant brand is leveraging the partnership to highlight Subway Delivery powered by DoorDash, which allows guests to order their Subway favorites via the Subway app or on Subway.com. Guests can earn and redeem Subway MyWay® Rewards points on Subway delivery orders as well. In conjunction with Harvick being in the NASCAR Playoffs, Subway ha a $0 Delivery fee on all Subway Delivery orders plus a 15 percent discount on a footlong for a limited time when using promo code KEVIN15. Subway will return as the primary sponsor of the No. 4 Ford Mustang for the Oct. 24 race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. Subway will also serve as a major associate sponsor of the No. 4 car Oct. 10 at the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval, Oct. 17 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth and Oct. 31 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
● While the NASCAR Playoffs have been in existence since 2004, it wasn’t until 2014 that rounds were added, with three separate cuts whittling down the 16-driver field during the 10-race playoffs. After the first three playoff races, the four lowest drivers in points get eliminated. Then, after the next three races, only the top-eight drivers move on. Three more races follow, with only the top-four drivers advancing to the Championship 4 where they compete in a winner-take-all title match in the season finale. Harvick is in the midst of his 12th consecutive playoff appearance and his 15th overall. He has now advanced out of the Round of 16 in all eight editions of the current playoff format. Coming into this season, he had advanced all the way to the Round of 8 since 2014, and five times he’s competed in the Championship 4, winning the NASCAR Cup Series title in 2014.
● Harvick comes into Las Vegas on a three-race top-10 streak, a run punctuated by a strong second-place drive last Saturday night at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway where he led three times for 71 laps. Before finishing second at Bristol, Harvick finished eighth Sept. 11 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway and fifth Sept. 4 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. Harvick has finished among the top-15 in the last nine races, a streak that began July 11 with an 11th-place result at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
● Since joining SHR in 2014, Harvick has finished among the top-10 in seven of the 11 NASCAR Cup Series races contested at Las Vegas. In that span, Harvick has led 621 laps and won twice – March 2015 and March 2018
● Harvick’s win at Las Vegas in March 2018 was his 100th career victory across NASCAR’s top-three national touring series – Cup, Xfinity and Camping World Truck. He has since scored 19 more Cup wins to bring his tally to 119 total victories – 58 in Cup, 47 in Xfinity and 14 in Truck. Only three other drivers in NASCAR history have surpassed 100 wins across NASCAR’s top-three series: Kyle Busch (222 wins), Richard Petty (200 wins) and David Pearson (106 wins).
● Harvick has a total of 12 top-10s at Las Vegas, the most of any active NASCAR Cup Series driver. Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano are next best with 11 top-10s apiece.
● Harvick has made 11 starts in the Xfinity Series at Las Vegas. He has two wins, six top-fives and seven top-10s. His first Xfinity Series win came in 2004 when he started 11th and led 14 laps. His second triumph came in 2010 when he started second and led 82 laps.
● Harvick has made three Truck Series starts at Las Vegas, earning two top-10s with a best finish of eighth in 1997.
Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Subway Delivery Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing
You’ve won at Las Vegas twice and have finished among the top-10 there seven times since joining SHR in 2014. What do you need to be quick at Las Vegas?
“Las Vegas has a lot of tire fall off, so it’ll be important to have a good-handling Subway Delivery Ford Mustang. It’s also a track where you’re constantly moving around trying to find the right grip.”
You advanced to the Round of 12 for the eighth straight time. What do you need to do in theses next three races to advance to the Round of 8?
“Right now, we’re just taking it one week at a time. That’s really the best way to go about it, and see where it all falls in the end.”
Does the intensity of the racing increase after each playoff round?
“For us, there’s no intensity dialed up. It’s exactly the same as it would be for the first race of the season, the second race, the third race. We try to approach things the same way, whether we’re running well or running badly, and whether or not it’s a cutoff race. You try to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s and control all the things that you can control, perform at a high level and do the things that you know how to do, whether it’s me in the car or Rodney (Childers, crew chief) on the pit box or everybody around us, it just takes the execution of a complete race. Our team has done a great job of that all year. Obviously, our cars have not performed to the level that we’d have liked them to perform, but we’ve been getting the finishes that we have and keeping ourselves around. We just keep plugging away and keep trying to reach out and do what we can by getting good finishes and not making any mistakes. That’s really what it boils down to this time of year. It doesn’t matter how you get there, it just matters if you advance or you don’t advance, and a lot of times it comes by controlling the things that you can control.”
You were very consistent throughout the regular season and that has continued into the playoffs. How important is it to maintain that consistency?
“We’ve gone about this a number of different ways throughout the years. We’ve pointed our way through and we’ve won our way through when our backs were against the wall. You’ve got to take what each race will give you, and there’s no way you can force things. That’s where a lot of people get themselves in trouble – when they start trying to do things outside their comfort zone of where their car is that particular day. Some days you have what you have and you need to get that finish with your car, and if you do that, usually you finish better than probably you would have otherwise. Las Vegas is no different. We’ll just have to go out there and grind away and see where we end up.”
No. 4 Subway Delivery Team Roster
Primary Team Members
Driver: Kevin Harvick
Hometown: Bakersfield, California
Crew Chief: Rodney Childers
Hometown: Mooresville, North Carolina
Car Chief: Robert “Cheddar” Smith
Hometown: Whitewater, Wisconsin
Engineer: Dax Gerringer
Hometown: Gibsonville, North Carolina
Engineer: Stephen Doran
Hometown: Butler, Pennsylvania
Spotter: Tim Fedewa
Hometown: Holt, Michigan
Over-The-Wall Members
Front Tire Changer: Shayne Pipala
Hometown: Frankfort Square, Illinois
Rear Tire Changer: Daniel Smith
Hometown: Concord, North Carolina
Tire Carrier: Jeremy Howard
Hometown: Delhart, Texas
Jack Man: Stan Doolittle
Hometown: Ninety Six, South Carolina
Fuel Man: Evan Marchal
Hometown: Westfield, Indiana
Road Crew Members
Mechanic: Richie Bean
Hometown: Bradford, Vermont
Tire Specialist: Jamie Turski
Hometown: Trumbull, Connecticut
Engine Tuner: Robert Brandt
Hometown: Mobile, Alabama
Transporter Co-Driver: Rick Hodges
Hometown: Raleigh, North Carolina
Transporter Co-Driver: Stephen Mitchell
Hometown: Woodville, Ohio
