Last ride: Kevin Harvick is set to go out on top with final race at track he's dominated
As Kevin Harvick straps into the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang for the final time Sunday at Phoenix Raceway (3 p.m., NBC), it will be exciting and sad for the veteran NASCAR Cup Series driver from Bakersfield, California.
Before the green flag drops over the last Cup Series race of the 2023 season, four drivers — Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, William Byron and Kyle Larson — will be racing for the coveted championship. Harvick will not be among them but a great deal of attention will be paid to the veteran and former Cup Series champion with 825 starts in NASCAR’s elite top series to his credit.
SHR is where Harvick logged his lone Cup Series title nine years ago with team owners Tony Stewart and Gene Haas and all told, he has collected 60 victories, 251 top-fives, 443 top-10s and 31 pole positions during his incredible career.
The most fitting way to go out would be to roll into victory lane for No. 61. Such a milestone is certainly not out of the question, as he has eight Cup Series wins at the one-mile Arizona track with four coming consecutively from November of 2013 through March of 2015.
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“Results-wise, I would say yes,” Harvick said when asked if a win was possible. “Phoenix has always been a good racetrack for me. Growing up on the West Coast, that was really the facility that you wanted to win at the most because we always had our biggest Southwest Tour races there. And in the Winston West Series, they actually had provisionals that would get you into the Cup Series race at that particular time, so you had a lot of Winston West guys who would go over and try to participate in the Cup race.”
Amazingly, Harvick has 20 consecutive top-10 finishes at Phoenix, a dominant statistic that very few other drivers can brag about. Harvick attributes that accomplishment to plenty of hard knocks along the way in other forms of racing there.
“We’ve probably dominated Phoenix because we spent so much time there learning and tearing stuff up and doing the things you’re not supposed to do at the racetrack,” Harvick said. “But flat tracks, in general, have always been pretty good for (me), just because of the fact that I grew up on so many flat tracks. I’ve spent a lot of time at Phoenix. I know the configuration has changed over the years, but it’s a big part of why the flat-track results have been so good throughout the years because it’s a racetrack that I spent a lot of time on in the early part of my career….”
Harvick came into the Cup Series scene from what was then the Busch Series upon the tragic untimely death of Dale Earnhardt on Feb. 18, 2001. Harvick won 23 races with team owner Richard Childress after stepping up to the Cup Series, his last with the Welcome, North Carolina-based organization coming in 2006 at Phoenix. In 2007, he moved to Stewart-Haas where he will end his career. Harvick deeply appreciated the opportunity afforded him by Childress but felt he needed to make the change to progress his career.
“…I’ve always felt like, and I still tell my guys this today, it’s evolve or die,” Harvick said. “If you want to be successful at this, you have to evolve with it, and whether that’s a car or a tire or a team or a racetrack or a dirt track or a road course, there are just so many things that make up this evolution of trying to make yourself better.
“I’ve never let myself get too comfortable, thinking that I didn’t need to get better or not do something because I didn’t have to. But I also think that’s what’s kept us relevant for so long. I’ve just never felt comfortable that you were going to be here forever and to be able to sit in this chair and say I’m going quit at the end of this year and I’m going to do it this way, for me, there is some sort of closure to that, to be able to say, ‘OK, here’s what we’re going to do for the last year, and when I get to this day, it’s over.’ There are just not too many who get to go out on their terms, and I think being able to do that, that’ll probably be the first time that I say I’ve actually made it because I got to end it….”
Harvick is used to grueling schedules, as he’s battled fender to fender in NASCAR races around the country over the past 22 years. He has owned and operated motorsports-related businesses throughout that time as well as others outside the sport. In 2024, Harvick will join FOX Sports as a commentator to add to that growing list of endeavors.
Harvick has not won a race in 2023 but a second-place finish at Darlington Raceway in May and two fourth-place finishes at Loudon and Pocono in July highlight his season. He has enjoyed his final year, no matter what the end score sheet reflects. That’s the way it should be every season, according to seven-time Cup Series champion Richard Petty. The winner of 200 Cup Series races often reminds today’s up-and-coming drivers not to forget to enjoy the moments of success that all too quickly fade away.
“For me, going into this year knowing that you could just let your guard down, to where it didn’t matter if somebody saw you having fun, it didn’t matter if somebody saw you hugging your daughter, it didn’t matter if somebody saw you giving your son a high-five, Harvick said. "It’s been fun to go out and compete and not be this really uptight, ‘I’m going to knock you out’ type of personality and instead be able to just let that guard down and go out and race hard and not have to worry about the show as much as you have in the past.”
For Harvick, there's one more chance to say goodbye as a winner.
NASCAR Cup Series Championship
Where: Phoenix Raceway
When: Sunday, 3 p.m.
Watch: NBC
Contenders: Kyle Larson, Christoper Bell, William Byron, Ryan Blaney
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: NASCAR Kevin Harvick last race Phoenix
