Kevin Harvick

To some he’s one of the best young talents to ever enter the big leagues of stock car racing. To others, he’s an overly aggressive wise guy trying to achieve too much too soon. Kevin Harvick’s accomplishments can’t be ignored, nor can the fender-banging driving style that occasionally got him into hot water last season. Harvick sat down with Stock Car Racing to reflect on the lessons learned from his first year of Winston Cup racing, his Busch Series championship, and the new season that lies ahead.

SCR: How did you pull off what you did in both the NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the Busch Series in 2001?

Harvick: Most of what we accomplished last year came from the strength of Richard Childress Racing, which is cut from a pretty strong mold as a whole. They were able to fly me here and there last year to race in both divisions without having to depend on anybody else. There are a lot of good people involved in a lot of areas within this organization that kept everything flowing in the right direction.

SCR: Were there times when you got tired of being pulled in so many directions?

Harvick: There were a lot of times when I wondered what in the heck I was trying to do. A good example of that is after the Busch Series race in St. Louis where I laid on the plane getting an IV put in my arm. Then again, I had to remember that odd circumstances required me and everybody else on the team to make it work. That’s what kept us going, along with all the critics who said there was no way I could do both.

SCR: How do you think you handled everything last year?

Harvick: For the most part, I wasn’t as close to Dale Earnhardt as a lot of the people were who’d been around this team for a while. Even with that, those same people were behind me from the get-go and they made that very clear. But when the emotions were running low, like when we went to Rockingham and Atlanta, there was always somebody around to help pick things up. For the most part, I think the fact that I wasn’t that close to Dale probably helped some, but I still had to remember the circumstances that put me where I am. Everybody really had to come together as one.

SCR: You did ultimately complete your dream of winning a Busch Series championship. What does that mean to you?

Harvick: Winning the Busch Series championship meant a great deal to me. Not only that, but we also won Rookie of the Year and finished in the Top 10 in Winston Cup points. That’s something that nobody had ever done before, and I feel like that says a lot about the strength of this organization. It’s something that will probably never be done again, and since it had never been done before, that does mean a great deal to me personally. Nobody thought we could do it.

SCR: What do you feel was your greatest accomplishment in 2001?

Harvick: To be honest, just making it through the season in both divisions. We made all the Winston Cup races and we’ve run very consistently in both Busch and Cup. We set out to run 70 races and we ran 70 races. It’s almost mind-boggling when you sit back and look at all we did last year. It’s overwhelming when you think about it.

SCR: On top of all the racing last year, you actually found the time to get married before the race at Las Vegas. How much help has DeLana been as far as dealing with everything?

Harvick: Aside from Richard Childress, DeLana has probably been the strongest thing holding me together through all I went through last year. When something’s going bad, she can always get me in a good mood or set me straight on how I need to be thinking. She’s definitely been one of the strongest two assets to me.

SCR: What did you do over the winter to get away from racing before going to Daytona for testing?

Harvick: Toward the end of last year everybody asked where I was going in the off-season. I stayed at home. We stayed on the road so much last year, we just wanted to spend some time to learn things like our address and zip code. We just relaxed.

SCR: But didn’t you still owe DeLana a honeymoon?

Harvick: Yeah, but she didn’t get it. Seriously, she didn’t want it either because staying at home over the winter was something she really wanted to do too. DeLana was as content to stay at home as I was because she was on every plane ride and went to every race with me last year. It’s been as hard on her as it has on me.

SCR: Outside of racing, what’s a perfect day in the life of Kevin Harvick?

Harvick: Really, just spending time and relaxing. I like playing with the dogs and my radio controlled cars. I also have an arcade downstairs at home, so I like messing with that, too. If I’ve got time off, I just like to kick back and not do a lot.

SCR: How do you explain your driving style?

Harvick: It’s aggressive and always has been. I was always pushed to figure out why I wasn’t winning even when I finished second. Doing what you have to do to win is how I was taught to race. That’s how my father taught me to race, with a “do what you have to do to win” attitude because nothing else matters.

SCR: Sometimes your driving style ruffled the feathers of your fellow drivers. What’s your take on that?

Harvick: That’s OK with me. If you’re going to dish it out, you have to be willing to take it, too. Some of the guys like to complain about people driving rough. I just give it back to them on the track. I can dish it out but I can take it, too. Those guys complaining about me aren’t going to change me, so I’m going to continue doing what I have to do to win races.

SCR: After winning the Busch Series title, you made the comment that you realized you’d made some mistakes. What did you mean by that? Were you maybe at times too aggressive?

Harvick: I don’t think most of my mistakes were made on the track. Most of my mistakes were made after the races when my emotions were running high. I guess I need to learn to compose myself a little bit quicker. I think over the course of last year, I learned to become a lot better at that. Just knowing when to say what at the right time and when not to say something at the wrong time is probably the biggest thing I learned last year. But as far as on the track, I don’t feel like I need to change too much.

SCR: Following the fall Winston Cup race at Martinsville a fellow driver said you were trying to fill Dale Earnhardt’s shoes and driving over your head. How do you take that?

Harvick: All of us would give back everything we did last year if we could have Dale Earnhardt with us, but we can’t do that. I didn’t ask to be put in this position, but I think a lot of people don’t realize that I have to be in this spot in order to keep going. Racing is how we as a team eat and pay our bills. This is our way of life and we have to somehow keep it going. I think comments like those are almost made out of resentment because I’m only 26 years old and doing good. They’re looking for the easiest way to excuse themselves of getting beat by a 26-year-old. To me, those were some cheap comments.

SCR: Do you fear being labeled as an overaggressive driver by your peers?

Harvick: That doesn’t bother me in the least.

SCR: What’s the biggest thing you learned last year?

Harvick: Richard told me that Winston Cup racing was going to be different, and he didn’t quite know how to explain it. He told me I was just going to have to experience it and he was exactly right. It’s something that’s so big, no matter what you do is huge. The biggest thing I learned was how to deal with all that and being under the microscope. I feel like the lessons I learned last season are going to take me long into my career.

SCR: What was the biggest surprise of last season?

Harvick: It had to be winning at Atlanta. We were just going to the racetracks trying to make it through the weekends at that point because it was so soon after what happened in Daytona. We unloaded off the trailer and were good all weekend. We ended up winning the race very unexpectedly. We thought we would be capable of winning a race later in the year, but not that soon. We were all kind of shocked. It was way above us. You couldn’t have written a book any better. We had some ugly circumstances to start the year off, but then to beat Jeff Gordon to the checkered flag was just incredible.

SCR: What area do you think you need to improve upon most heading into your second season of Winston Cup?

Harvick: If I’ve got a car that’s running 10th, that’s where I need to finish and not wreck and finish 30th. We need to take the same philosophy we used last year in the Busch Series and turn those bad days into days that aren’t that bad. We just need to build on our consistency.

SCR: Looking ahead to next year, you’re going to be working with a couple of new teammates at RCR. What are your thoughts on the addition of Jeff Green and Robby Gordon?

Harvick: The addition of those two guys is really going to help this team. Robby’s going to have little bit of a learning curve, but Jeff is probably going to be the biggest asset to the situation. All three of us really want to win and that’s going to be good for everybody involved now that we’re under the same ownership.

SCR: What are your thoughts as you prepare for your first start in the Daytona 500?

Harvick: It’s the biggest stock car race there is, so I can’t wait to go there and get the year started off right. Maybe I can win my first Daytona 500. That is the biggest race in our sport, so winning it would really mean the world to me.

SCR: What kind of goals have you set for yourself and the No. 29 team?

Harvick: The biggest thing we want to do is contend for the championship, and I know that’s setting some pretty lofty goals. I really think we can finish somewhere in the Top 5. Plus I’d like to be in contention to win a few more races.

SCR: What is one thing that nobody knows about Kevin Harvick that you think would surprise your fans?

Harvick: I like to sing to myself for some reason. I’m a car-singer, the guy you see going down the road singing a song that he really doesn’t know the words to. I know my wife would tell you that story.

SCR: You’ve obviously got a tremendous amount of racing experience under your belt. But looking back on it all, what is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in a race car, something you did and thought, “I can’t believe I just did that?”

Harvick: I think the stupidest thing I ever did was when I was racing my go-kart at Riverside in 1991 at the Grand Nationals. I was 15 years old and racing against some of the best drivers there were because they’d been racing for years. I started around seventh, and I was always notorious for going from the back to the front on the first lap. So I slammed that go-kart into the grass and slipped back up the track and made it four-wide. I had everybody in the race pissed off at me, but I thought it was pretty cool at the time. Those guys weren’t very happy with me.

Harvick ran out front enough in 2001 that he’s set high goals for himself in 2002, including a Top-5 finish in points.