Busch Light Racing: Kevin Harvick Phoenix Advance

KEVIN HARVICK
Phoenix Advance
No. 4 Busch Light #BuschPitBoss Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview
● Event: NASCAR Cup Series Season Finale (Round 36 of 36)
● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EST on Sunday, Nov. 7
● Location: Phoenix Raceway
● Layout: 1-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 312 laps/312 miles (502 kilometers)
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 75 laps / Stage 2: 115 laps / Final Stage: 122 laps
● TV/Radio: NBC / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

● When Kevin Harvick hits pit road for four tires and fuel, he always pits like a boss. Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, Harvick’s fans can pit like a boss, too. Bush Beer has partnered with Pit Boss Grills to give away a custom Busch Beer grill and smoker. All fans have to do is log into their Twitter feed, follow @BuschBeer, turn on their notifications, and then every time Harvick makes a pit stop during the race, tweet #BuschPitBoss and #Sweepstakes and they’ll be entered for a chance to win a Pit Boss 850G Navigator Series grill and smoker. Tailgates will be lit with its eight-in-one cooking versatility, allowing the winner to smoke, bake, braise, roast, grill, barbecue, char-grill and sear. It’s a boss move when you bring this kind of heat, and it can all be had with a tweet.

● Who owns Phoenix Raceway? NASCAR or Harvick? NASCAR owns the facility, at least on paper, but Harvick owns the track. The driver of the No. 4 Busch Light #BuschPitBoss Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) has won a record nine NASCAR Cup Series races at the 1-mile oval. No other active Cup Series driver has won more than three races at Phoenix. Former Cup Series driver Jimmie Johnson is the closest to Harvick with four wins at the track.

● Harvick hasn’t finished outside the top-10 in his last 16 starts at Phoenix. The last time he finished outside the top-10 was March 3, 2013 when he finished 13th. That was nearly nine years ago when “Harlem Shake” by Baauer was the No. 1 song on the Billboard music charts thanks to the meme it inspired. Don’t remember it? No problem. Let the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes show you how it was done back in 2013 by clicking here.

● Of Harvick’s nine NASCAR Cup Series victories at Phoenix, he won four straight between November 2013 and March 2015. The streak ended when Harvick finished second at Phoenix in November 2015, but when the series returned to the track in March 2016, Harvick won again. Harvick is the only driver to win four Cup Series races in a row at Phoenix. Johnson was next best with three straight wins between November 2007 and November 2008. Only five drivers have won consecutive Cup Series races at Phoenix, but Harvick is the only driver to win consecutive races twice, as he also swept both races in 2006.

● In 37 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Phoenix, Harvick has earned an average finish of 8.8, the best of any active Cup Series driver. Denny Hamlin is next best with an average finish of 10.8 over 32 Cup Series starts.

● To finish first, one must first finish. Proving this mantra is Harvick’s lap completion rate of 99.8 percent at Phoenix. In fact, of the 11,551 laps available to Harvick at Phoenix, he has only missed 21 of those laps. Harvick’s first career NASCAR Cup Series start at Phoenix came on Oct. 28, 2001 when he started 37th and finished 17th.

● With the Estrella Mountains as its backdrop, Phoenix is a picture-perfect racetrack. Harvick has also been perfect at the desert oval. He has scored a perfect driver rating (150.0) at Phoenix on three occasions – November 2006 when he started second, led 252 of 312 laps, and won; November 2014 when he started third, led 264 of 312 laps, and won; and March 2015, when he started first, led 224 of 312 laps, and won.

● Harvick has also proven to be successful at Phoenix outside of the NASCAR Cup Series. He owns a NASCAR Xfinity Series win (April 2006) and four NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victories (November 2002, October 2003, November 2008 and November 2009).

● Harvick is not a part of the Championship 4, but he’s still competing at a championship-caliber level. The 45-year-old racer from Bakersfield, California, comes into Phoenix with 10 top-five and 23 top-10 finishes this season. There are only two other drivers who have more top-10s this year than Harvick – Championship 4 participants Kyle Larson (25 top-10s) and Denny Hamlin (24 top-10s).

Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Busch Light #BuschPitBoss Ford Mustang

How would you assess this season?

“That’s a good question. For us as a group on the 4 car, I think we’ve worked through things pretty well. We’ve been in position to win two or three races, but one thing or another didn’t let that happen or didn’t make it happen, however you want to look at it. But I’ve had a lot worse seasons, I know that for sure. I’ve lived through a whole bunch that were way worse than this one. This one has been a bit of a struggle to get the finishes that we have, but in the end, I’ve raced like that for years in my career. You know, a lot of people that watch and cover the sport in this particular period forget about 20 years ago. It’s hard to explain to people some of the things that you’ve been through. I feel like my first press conference was the biggest one I’ll ever do, the first year was the most stressful I’ll ever have, 2002 was a horrendous year, and somehow we won a race that year playing the track-position game and put ourselves in the right spot. I’ve personally been through some pretty tough years and this one has just been a struggle because you had to work so hard to get everything you have. I think from a team standpoint, we’ve also learned a lot about the other side of the fence as far as having to dig your heels in and do things that you haven’t had to do. And whether you like it or not, that race is coming up next week and you’re going to have to participate, whether your car is slow or fast, and you’ve got to figure out how to make the most out of that. For us, I know we have 23 top-10s, and you look at the top-fives, they’re not where we want them to be. But when you look at the overall picture and the grind that we’ve been through this year, I think everybody’s done a good job and I think a lot of that comes from the maturity and the experience of this Busch Light team and being together so long.”

After a nine-win season in 2020, was there added pressure to perform this year because of how high you set the bar last year?

“It’s really no pressure. We know what we can and can’t do, and we go out and do those things. The noise from the outside never really affects anything that we do just because there are so many things that everybody doesn’t know or understand about the situation, and I think that’s really what’s kept us in the game. You can’t take an eighth- or ninth-place finish and turn it into a 30th-place finish. That’s really, in the end, what’s kept us going and put us in the playoffs and put us in a points position to do what we need to do and put us through the first round and kept us in it the second round. You can’t exceed the limits of your racecar because it wrecks or put yourself in a position to get wrecked. That’s really by not listening to, ‘You need to go faster, or you need to do this or you need to do that.’ You do what you know you can do and that’s really what our team has done well throughout the year.”

Twenty-three top-10 finishes so far this season, with seven of them coming in the last nine races. Have you been able to be more consistent as you return to tracks you competed on earlier this year?

“For sure. I think we had less problems with our cars than we really thought we had at the beginning of the season. I think a lot of it was just the process of making the right adjustments on our cars and getting the balance closer to where it needed to be. We have made the cars better, but our guys have done a good job of just really putting everything together to make sure we’re not in right field to start these races. We’ve been able to adjust on our car to make it better because we’re closer at the beginning of the race. And just getting what you can out of the day and going to the next one. It’s not the way we usually race, which is you’re always on offense and going forward and trying to do those things. You have moments and time periods during the race that you can do that, but you have to be very methodical about the things that you do on pit road with changes on the car. We’ve all done a good job of that.”

Did the team’s development of the racecar get curtailed this year because there was a parts freeze as teams began the transition to the NextGen car in 2022?

“I think our team is good enough to where we could’ve alleviated some of the headaches we experienced if we would’ve had practice and those types of things throughout the year, just because of the fact we would’ve known, ‘Whoa, our balance is way off on where we need to be this weekend.’ And I can relate to Rodney (Childers, crew chief), that it’s not just off a little bit, it’s off a lot, and we need to have a massive reboot in the trailer to get the car closer for the race. You get to a certain point where you’re so far off that when you start adjusting on things like we were in the beginning of the year, you’re never going to get it right until you put it back on the scales and set the heights and do the things that it takes to get it close. Last year, it was the opposite. You had everything where you wanted it and didn’t have any issues and it didn’t matter if you practiced. This year, you wish you had practice and you wish you had some of the things to alleviate the stress of the start of the races and where we’ve been on the balance at different times. That’s been a lot better the last couple of months. We’ve made ground on it, but we’d have made ground on it a lot faster if we’d have been on the racetrack. We always do well at development stuff and making changes, but you couldn’t do that this year. We all knew that game going in. Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of it and had to grind away at it and do the best that we could.”

What has carried the No. 4 team this year?

“It’s really been a group effort and, honestly, the group that’s carried us the most this year has been the pit crew. Those guys have been just on point all year and helped with gaining track position while making huge changes to the racecar. It’s really been a combination of a whole bunch of things. I feel like I’ve made a couple of mistakes in the seat, but I think overall in the car, we’ve done a good job. Rodney’s made some great pit calls. All those things just add up, and I think the pit crew has been the shining element of our season and has really helped us stay in a lot of races.”

Your crew chief, Rodney Childers, announced a few weeks ago that he had re-signed with SHR. How important it to have him locked up longterm to where you know he’s going to be your crew chief?

“Rodney is a key element of everything that we’ve done and the nucleus of the team. He’s done a great job and, as we go forward, it’s very comforting to know that you have the same voice and the same person with you, and I think the guys on the team feel the same way. Obviously, he and I talk about those things on occasion when they pop up and, as we go forward here over the next couple of years, I think he and I are definitely on the same page as far as where we’re both at. We’ll move forward and keep doing the things that we’ve been doing.”

No. 4 Busch Light #BuschPitBoss 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