Harvick comes long way from go-karts of youth
Defending Sprint Cup champ still dominating as few have
WASHINGTON — Even a mind honed to absolute focus from years of driving up to 200 mph for hours at a time can be blown. Kevin Harvick realized that Tuesday at the White House.
“You’re walking out the doors of the White House with the president of the United States — to listen to a speech about you,” Harvick, 39, said a few hours after a ceremony where President Barack Obama honored NASCAR’s 2014 Sprint Cup Series champion.
“I grew up in the poor part of town in Bakersfield, Calif., scrimping and scraping for everything we had, to go race gokarts or eat lunch. It’s hard to get your head around that,” Harvick said.
All across NASCAR, which pulled into Richmond, Va., this week for today’s Toyota Owners 400, folks are having trouble getting their heads around what Harvick is doing. From the end of 2014, when he won the final two races to edge Ryan Newman for the Sprint Cup title, to his sizzling start this season, he is dominating the sport as few have done.
A recent streak of eight top-two finishes was the longest since Richard Petty had 11 straight in 1975. This season Harvick has led for 35.7 percent of all laps. The next-best percentage belongs to Joey Logano, at 12.2 percent.
For a guy who grew up idolizing fellow Bakersfield native Rick Mears, and who was tabbed to replace Dale Earnhardt in the famed GM Goodwrench Chevrolet after Earnhardt’s 2001 death, the historical implications are mind-boggling.
“I understand what people like Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt and Cale Yarborough and those guys meant to the sport; and the next thing you know, you’re getting compared to this streak or that stat,” Harvick said. “It’s amazing. But when it’s going good, you have to almost work harder — because you know how hard it is when things are not going well. You have to work twice as hard to catch up.”
Harvick’s run of dominance has validated a series of life-changing decisions he and wife DeLana have made in the past few years. In 2011, they closed up shop on Kevin Harvick Incorporated, the racing team they launched a decade earlier.
In July 2012, DeLana gave birth to their first child, a son named Keelan. Six months later Harvick confirmed he would be switching from Richard Childress Racing, his home since 2000, to Stewart-Haas Racing beginning in 2014. At the end of 2014, the family moved from Oak Ridge, N.C., to Charlotte to be closer to the SHR shop.
Harvick said his 2014 success, with his first Sprint Cup championship, could not have happened without the changes he and his wife made in their lives.
“We put ourselves in position to be good parents, and also be more competitive on Sunday,” he said.
As for the switch from Childress to Stewart-Haas, Harvick said, “It had just become a little stagnant for me. Mentally it was just time for me to go somewhere else that (made) me excited to show up at the shop or show up at the race.”