Harvick signs two- year extension
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Kevin Harvick put a mic drop on his TV broadcasting career and turned off the dial on his radio show. The moonlighting gigs have been parked, minimizing his distractions, maximizing his family time, but certainly not accelerating any thoughts about retirement.
If he kept his talk show, Harvick could have broken his own news: His time in the media is on sabbatical, but his racing career is miles from the finish.
At 44, Harvick is not only still on the short list of NASCAR’s elite drivers, the 2014 Cup champion is set to drive for a few more seasons after he agreed to a two- year contract extension with Stewart- Haas Racing through the 2023 season.
“I really like racing with the group of guys and the organization that I’m at,“Harvick said Saturday at Daytona International Speedway. “I’ve worked my whole career and feel like I got here with a group of guys and people that I’ve had success with, and for me, going through a few more years in the car just made sense.“
Harvick, who has 49 career wins and won the 2007 Daytona 500, did make a few key concessions in his professional life to remain focused as a championship contender at SHR. One of the more outspoken drivers in the garage, Harvick gave up his occasional job calling Xfinity Series races for Fox Sports and will no longer host his “Happy Hours” NASCAR talk show on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. He has two young children — son Keelan is a fixture by his side on race weekend — and he wanted another free day during the week to spend with his family.
“Wednesdays just don’t work very well for me with Keelan with picking him up from school and going to events and activities and things after school. He didn’t really like it,” Harvick said. “That was a piece of the equation. The other piece was that in order to do that stuff right, it isn’t just the show. It is the production meetings and the time, and you have things coming up from a development standpoint that are going to take a lot of time at the end of the year to get prepared for 2021 from a testing standpoint.”
Harvick has been the linchpin at SHR since he left Richard Childress Racing and joined the organization in 2014. He won a championship in his first season and has 26 of his 49 career Cup wins for the team backed by Hall of Famer Tony Stewart. Harvick drives the No. 4 Ford for SHR and has finished third in the final standings each of the last three seasons — and raced for the championship in the season finale in five of the six years of the format.