NASCAR CUP SERIES
DARLINGTON RACEWAY
THE REAL HEROES 400
FORD PERFORMANCE DRIVER – POST RACE QUOTES
SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2020
KEVIN HARVICK WINS 50TH CAREER CUP SERIES RACE
- Kevin Harvick won his first race of the season and 50th of his Cup career today.
- Harvick is the 14th driver to win at least 50 Cup Series races and passes his boss, Tony Stewart, who won 49 during his career, on the all-time list.
- Harvick is now tied with NASCAR Hall of Famers Ned Jarrett and Junior Johnson with 50 wins.
- This marks the 20th win for Stewart-Haas Racing since joining Ford (Harvick has won 15).
- The win is Mustang’s third of the season.
- Today’s win is Ford’s 689th all-time in NASCAR Cup Series competition.
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Light #YOURFACEHERE Ford Mustang — POST-RACE INTERVIEW — “I want to thank everybody from NASCAR and all the teams for letting us do what we do. I didn’t think it was gonna be that much different and then we won the race and it’s dead silent out here. We miss the fans, just gotta thank everybody from Busch Light, Hunt Brothers Pizza, Mobil 1, Jimmy John’s, everybody from Ford who helps on this car. It’s a pretty big honor to win 50 races in this deal and I just have to thank all my team guys and everybody for what they’re doing. This Dr. Josh Hughes is one of my really good friends. I spend a lot of time with him and have seen how this whole pandemic has affected our front line workers in person on a weekly basis, so thank you, Josh. We’re thinking of you. I want to say hi to DeLana and my kids at home. I guess we’ll bring home the trophy.”
YOU HAVE 50 WINS NOW IN THIS SERIES. “It doesn’t seem real and I think as you look at Darlington I think as you look at the things that happened this weekend I really thought that it would definitely play into our hand just because our guys are so good at hitting the car off the truck for the most part. We put a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of studying, a lot of meetings and just have to thank everybody at the shop who has built all these cars and just, man, I’m excited. It is weird just because there’s nobody up there, and you can go to Busch Beer.com and maybe have your face on the car next week, up here on the hood. I’m speechless.”
AT WHAT POINT DURING THE RACE DID YOU KNOW YOU HAD A RACE-WINNING CAR? “I was really happy that we had the first pit stall. That really played into our advantage. Track position was huge. Our Busch LIght Ford was fast enough on the restarts to be able to fight those guys off and then once I got in a rhythm I could start to pull away, but it was definitely close when we start and I think that was our goal — just not to be in right field. So we were close and I just have to thank everybody from Busch Light, Mobil 1, Ford, Hunt Brother’s Pizza, everybody who is a part of this Ford Mustang at Stewart-Haas Racing.”
DR. HUGHES IS ABOVE YOUR WINDOW. HOW SPECIAL IS IT TO WIN FOR HIM? “Yeah, so now we can make a win diecast in his honor, so Dr. Hughes, Josh is one of my really good friends. I spend a lot of time talking to him through this pandemic and really have heard how those doctors are affected with everything they have going on with their personal life and whether they’re sick, not sick, how they should treat people. It’s quite the progression of how it all went in talking to him, so I’m just really honored and really thankful for all of our front line workers, not only our doctors, but grocery stores, truck drivers, fire fighters, police departments — you name it. All of you front line workers are the reason that we’re here today and our country is actually still running.”
WE RACE ON WEDNESDAY AGAIN. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO GO BACK-TO-BACK? “It’s gonna be a little bit different. Hopefully, we have at least one more race before we come back with the XFINITY cars. It’ll be night, so I think you definitely have to figure out what you want to do with your car.”
