Top 20 Countdown: No. 15 Kevin Harvick
(Getty Images)
2009 statistics
Finish | Poles | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
19 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 9 |
The countdown
No. 20: Martin Truex Jr. | Career stats
No. 19: Brian Vickers | Career stats
No. 18: Kasey Kahne | Career stats
No. 17: Clint Bowyer | Career stats
No. 16: David Reutimann | Career stats
No. 15: Kevin Harvick | Career stats
No. 14: Revealed Jan. 19
Editor's note: Yahoo! Sports is counting down the top 20 drivers of the 2010 season. The order was determined by a survey, which asked five NASCAR journalists – Jay Busbee and Jay Hart (Yahoo! Sports); Jenna Fryer (Associated Press); Dustin Long (Landmark Newspapers); and Nate Ryan (USA Today) – to predict the final standings for the 2010 season. The countdown will conclude on Feb. 5 with the unveiling of the No. 1 driver.
2009 finish: 19th
Our 2010 predictions:
• Jay Busbee: 15th
• Jay Hart: 19th
• Jenna Fryer: 18th
• Dustin Long: 18th
• Nate Ryan: 7th
2010 outlook: Harvick is a free agent at season's end, which means this season can go one of two ways for him – team owner Richard Childress can load him up with the best equipment in a last-ditch effort to keep him under the RCR umbrella, or Harvick will sign with another team by mid-summer, leaving him and Childress to figure out how to play out the final few months of the season.
Whichever way it goes, all think Harvick will very much dominate the conversation in the early goings of the 2010 season. Will he stay or will he go? And if he goes, where will he end up? With a third Tony Stewart car? With a fourth Joe Gibbs car?
These will be the questions, none of which necessarily would have been asked had last season not gone so incredibly wrong for Harvick. But they did, as Harvick went from finishing a strong fourth in 2008 to a confidence busting 19th in '09. Unwilling to give away any more years of his career, Harvick has made it abundantly clear he will consider options beyond RCR in hopes of finding more stability, and he should.
Harvick is still a top-10 driver. He knows that, hence the frustration. And while the uncertainty doesn't mean 2010 will be a bust for him – he and the rest of the Childress brigade finished the '09 season strong – it certainly won't make things easier.
What you need to know: Last season, Harvick led a career-low 159 laps. That's the bad news. The good news is 150 of those came in the final 12 races of the season, meaning he and new crew chief Gil Martin found some speed.