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.