Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Stewart-Haas Racing fine with Ford
Transition from Chevy is no problem for team of Kurt Busch, Harvick
HAMPTON, Ga. — So much for a transition period at Stewart-Haas Racing.
The NASCAR team hasn’t slowed since switching from Chevrolet to Ford. Kurt Busch won the season-opening Daytona 500, and Kevin Harvick followed up by earning the pole for Sunday’s Monster Energy Cup Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“Hopefully this is the start of something great,” Harvick said.
There was plenty of speculation about how the change would go, especially for a driver such as Harvick who had a long relationship with Chevrolet.
Turns out, he had no trouble getting back up to speed.
“It’s fun to open Pandora’s box,” Harvick said. “You have to turn every leaf over and look at everything in your company. Everything is different from top to bottom. But one thing that stayed consistent was very good people. It’s been fun to see a group of people come together and try to make things better. It’s a major undertaking to do what we did.”
Busch, the Las Vegas native, is still savoring the high from his Daytona victory. It may take awhile to come down. “You take it all in, you absorb it,” Busch said. “Years ago, when I won the (2004) championship, you look at it and you think, ‘Aww, man, this is a lot that goes along with it.’ And maybe I didn’t soak it all in. This time around, my phone is still 400 texts deep. I can’t get caught up.”
While Stewart-Haas is showing early dominance, don’t forget about seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson.
He’s the two-time defending race winner in Atlanta.
“It’s been a great track for me,” Johnson said. “The last two races we won here, we didn’t really get ourselves situated until late in the going. But able to come out on top. Just because you have a slow Friday or a slow start to the race, I don’t think you can count anybody out. We have a lot of chances to work on the car and make big stuff happen here, which is really neat.”