Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Championship Race Media Availability | Friday, November 3, 2023
Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Light Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing, will be making the final start of his NASCAR Cup Series career in Sunday’s Championship race. Harvick, who ranks 10th on the all-time Ford win list with 25 victories in seven seasons, addressed members of the media before today’s practice session to talk about this weekend.
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Light Harvick Ford Mustang – IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO SAY BEFORE WE GO TO QUESTIONS? “Obviously, it’s been a great ride and I think for me it’s something that I love to do and I think as you look back on it and realize all the things that you’ve been able to be a part of and be fortunate to be somewhat successful at, it’s been fun. Obviously, I’m not going far. I guess I’ll just be sitting on the other side of the table asking the questions, but it’s been a great ride and appreciate everything you guys have done for me, whether they’re good questions or bad questions. I guess doesn’t really matter, but it’s been fun. I appreciate what you guys do.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN GO OUT WITH A WIN ON SUNDAY? “We did run good and I think as you look back at just the history of everything that we’ve done here, it’s been OK. We’ve been rather hit or miss this year, but I think this is a place, no matter how your season has gone, you come to with the expectations of running at the front of the pack, so hopefully that’s what we can do.”
HAS ALL OF THIS KIND OF HIT YOU THIS WEEK? DOES IT FEEL ANY DIFFERENT? “I think, for me, all the weeks leading up to this particular one were really not that hard. I think this week was a little more difficult just because it is the last week with your guys and the people and everything that you do is actually coming to an end. I don’t think up until this point, I don’t think anybody really thought it was real and this week it’s pretty real. I think this week has been definitely different than everything leading up to this just because of the fact that there isn’t a next week. There’s been a next week up until this week. Look, it’s very different – the things that we have to do going forward, but it’s all planned out and I think as I talked to Dale Jr., he was in a very similar situation where the TV piece of it was planned out. The race team piece of it is planned out. We have a management company. We have golf cart stores. All of those things are already functioning. I think it would be much different if you weren’t closing the book. I think, for me, I feel very fortunate to be able to open the book and obviously our first chapter was a little bit different than most people’s, but it’s the time that we chose to be able to say, ‘OK, this is it.’ And this is gonna be the last week coming to Phoenix and racing here for the last time. When you used to come here and race just for a hobby and you looked forward to coming to this particular racetrack on Cup weekend and in February for the Copper Classic every year. As a west coast racer that’s what you did. It is a lot different than the week’s past because there isn’t a next one.”
DO THE KIDS REALIZE THAT THIS IS THE END? “Yeah. For weeks Piper has been like, ‘Dad, why do you have to go to the next one? You’re already retiring.’ So, she’s pretty much over it. Keelan is terrified just because of the fact that he knows I’m gonna be at way more races than what I was before and he knows that I’m gonna be all over him a lot more than I am right now. Right now, he can go off and do his thing and race and dad’s not there to critique every single move that he makes, so that party is over, but I think it’s fun. Piper told Cheddar earlier. He asked her, ‘What are you looking forward to the most?’ She said, ‘Well, dad is gonna come watch me race, so that’ll be fun.”
WHEN YOU CAME IN THE WEEKENDS WERE LONGER AND YOU HAD TESTING, BUT YOU DIDN’T HAVE A LOT OF MIDWEEK STUFF YOU HAVE NOW. PLUS, THE SPONSOR SITUATION HAS CHANGED. DO YOU FEEL DRIVERS HAD MORE ON THEIR PLATE WHEN YOU STARTED OR NOW? “It’s just different and I say that not trying to be a smart aleck. The demands on the time are not as much as they used to be because I really think since 2009 when everything crashed and COVID, the demands on your time from an appearance standpoint and testing standpoint and days at the racetrack are much, much less than what they used to be. I think it’s the tedious work that comes with the details that go into the video and the data and everything that comes with that and, really, from the driver’s standpoint you’re part of an equation and you have to be pretty involved in everything that’s going on to be able to understand the ins and outs of the equation to be able to make a difference. Otherwise, you’re really a hindrance to really the whole system and you never really get anywhere. If they hit on something, then you have a little bit of success, but it’s never gonna be consistent, unless you really understand how to be a part of that equation. So, to me, it’s a lot easier than it used to be, just because you don’t have to go to do so many sponsor appearances. Even though you have more sponsors, there’s still not a huge demand on your time like there used to be from an appearance standpoint, just because of the way that companies utilize your time is just much different because of the way that they do events and things compared to how they used to do it with free-for-all marketing accounts, budgets that you just had dinners and different things all the time. But I still believe that one of the biggest challenges that many of our young drivers have is really time management and trying to get that circle of life and balance to make yourself realize that it’s really not that busy, and figure out how to do a lot more things in a short amount of time and still be able to function. A lot of it just comes with structure and organization and I think that’s one thing we stress a lot to our young guys is, ‘Hey, how do we get your circle of life in balance so you can do more because you’re really not doing that much. It’s not that hard.’”
YOUR CAREER IS THE END OF AN ERA WITH SIX CHAMPIONS BEING BORN IN THE 1970s AND YOU’RE THE LAST ONE FROM THAT GROUP RETIRING. HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THAT AT ALL AND WHAT YOU AND YOUR PEERS HAVE ACCOMPLISHED? “I think when you name that list it’s a group of guys that came in at a great time because you got to race against the guys that were just ending their careers in the early 2000s or late nineties, and then you got to go through a new generation of guys that you came up with. I don’t know how many there are, but there’s a number of us that went through almost 20 years of it together and you really blocked out a whole generation in between for the most part just because you had so many guys that were so good, and able to be successful. But we also came through at a time when the sport was just out of control with money from a sponsorship standpoint, and all the team owners were looking for the next great driver. So they started their Busch Series teams and everybody had a Busch Series team. We were at this fortunate time when the Cup Series team owners were just looking for anybody that might have a chance and you could find funding to fund that program. All you had to do was say you were starting a program and you’d have two or three opportunities for sponsorship, and that’s how it was as you went through. For me, when we decided that we were gonna go Cup racing, we had three sponsors and we had to decide which one we wanted and that was at a very unique time in this sport and I think I’m very fortunate to have raced in the previous generation to come through with the guys that I did and now, really for me, I’m at a fortunate spot to be able to see the whole next generation starting. You have some really young guys that are in their early thirties, late twenties, mid-twenties and now I get to take that and have raced against most all those guys that are gonna be here for a long time and go up in the TV booth and I already know them all and have raced against them and have a relationship with them. My generation of racers came through at a very unique time that was just really fortunate to get to race against the previous generation, my generation and the future generation. To see all those changes in cars and tires and racers and styles of racing and we went from trial and error to simulators and simulation and iRacing and everything that comes with the sport now. When we did that before, you’d just go to the racetrack and you’d cut the cross member out and you’d drill holes in the frame and you just tested and tested and tested and tested at the track and now you don’t do it that way at all. But that’s one thing, whether it was my race teams or the race team that I have now, it’s evolve or die because this is an evolution process that is never gonna end because there are engineers and smart people and you always have to keep your head up and your eyes open or you’re gonna miss something and get left behind. I think with some of the generation of guys that were going out when we were coming in, they were very stuck on, ‘these are the springs that we need to run in the car. You can’t do this and you can’t do that.’ And they quickly got left behind and then, to me, I remember that like it was yesterday and you look back at those guys and you’re like, ‘Man, if they would have just followed the evolution of the sport and let it come to them, they would have still driven it fine.’ They just wouldn’t have known what springs were in the car and what shocks were on the car and where it was gonna go next and whether it was high or low it still went around the racetrack, it just went around the racetrack faster, but that’s what we do. The days of knowing everything that’s in your car and knowing how it works, you almost need to forget that because you’re just interrupting the process of all the smart people that work on the car to make it go faster and find something new and make a better part or piece, so there’s just a lot of things that have changed and I love that part of it. I love the evolution of watching it change and that’s always been something that I’ve taken pride in, in being able to be a part of that change and still be successful at what we did.”
IS THE NEXT GENERATION IN GOOD HANDS? “I think it is. I think guys like Joey Logano are gonna be great leaders. They already are. You see some of the younger guys start to speak up in the meetings and I can’t wait to continue to be a part of those meetings as we go forward and listen to it evolve and grow and change and see who the new leaders become because that’s the process and that’s how it works. There’s a lot of really good racers and now I think you’ll see guys evolve into leaders that you might not have expected, so that will be fun for everybody to watch and learn, but you’ve also got some guys that have been here a while that will do a good job.”
EVERYTHIING YOU HAVE LEARNED AND EXPERIENCED, WHAT DO YOU NOT WANT KEELAN AND PIPER TO DO? “The one thing that I tell Keelan is, I always tell him I’m like, we’ll get into some sort of disagreement of why you should do something or why you shouldn’t do something. He’ll say, ‘Well, you did this or you did that.’ And I’ll tell him, ‘That’s exactly why I’m sitting here telling you not to do that. If you’ll just shut up and listen, I’ll make you better.’ It’s not very hard. I’ve already been down this road and I’ve already made this mistake and, really, that’s one of the great advantages that we have from the management side is if you’ll just listen. I’m not telling you this is how you have to do it, but just listen to me and then you take it and you evolve from there, but don’t make the simple mistakes. I think from Piper’s standpoint, she’s still trying to figure it all out, but Keelan is pretty easy because he’s a lot like me. He’s a lot like me in the way that he acts and the things that he does and the things that he says, but he, for me, is very coachable because of the fact that I know his next move. It’s really simple, so I think for him if he’ll just listen and not make some of the same mistakes and just have a better starting point, then he can take it and evolve from there. And if we can make his sister just be in charge of everything, she will definitely take charge. That seems pretty easy. If it were me, before I had kids I would say, ‘Don’t ever get involved in racing. You don’t want to do it. It’s not the lifestyle you want to live.’ And then you have kids and you look around and you realize, ‘Man, this is really what my life is all about. I love racing’ And that really came from watching Keelan race and watching him grow to love this sport and watching the other parents and the other kids and everything that they did was all about racing because they loved going to the racetrack and it brought them together. That’s what I’ve done my whole life. You get in this mode where you walk in the racetrack, you’ve got your head down, you walk to your hauler, you put your suit on, you walk from the hauler to the car and from the car to the hauler and from the hauler home. And I can’t wait to walk in the racetrack with my head up and just look around because I have really never done that. I think for them probably the best advice I can give them is to try to have fun because it’s not always going to be fun. There’s always gonna be something that’s hard and in order to be good at this it’s not gonna be fun most of the time, so I don’t know if that answers your question.”
WHO DOES KEELAN LIKE TO LISTEN TO? “He likes to listen to anybody but me, but he listens. I think he listens but doesn’t want you to think he’s listening, which I’m the same way. It’s fine, but I think, for me, I’ve learned that I don’t need to be the coach. I need to coach through the coach. Put him around the people that I can trust with what I think is the right way to teach the right methods because you’re gonna get a lot further. That, to me, is a better strategy thanks to Jeff Burton.”
