Kevin Harvick


Kevin Michael Harvick is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver and commentator for NASCAR on Fox.
He last competed full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 4 Ford Mustang GT for Stewart–Haas Racing. Harvick won the Cup Series championship in 2014 as well as the 2001 and 2006 Xfinity Series championships, and the 2007 Daytona 500. Harvick holds the all-time record for Cup Series wins at Phoenix Raceway with nine wins. Harvick's 121 combined national series wins currently rank him third all-time in NASCAR history, behind Richard Petty and Kyle Busch, respectively, while his 60 Cup wins are tenth in series history. Harvick began his NASCAR career in 1992. He is the third of only six drivers to have won a championship in both the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series, and the fifth of 36 drivers to have won a race in each of NASCAR's three national series. While still racing full time, Harvick worked as a broadcaster off-and-on for NASCAR on FOX starting in 2015, calling Xfinity Series races. Since retiring from NASCAR Cup Series competition, Harvick has called Cup Series races for Fox starting in 2024.
Harvick is the owner of Kevin Harvick Incorporated, a race team that fielded cars in the Xfinity Series from 2004 to 2011 and the Truck Series between 2001 and 2011. The team's No. 29 late model is driven part-time in the CARS Tour by Harvick himself, alongside the No. 62 late model, which is driven full-time by Harvick's son Keelan Harvick. In the media, he has sometimes been nicknamed "the Closer" and "Happy Harvick."

Early life

Harvick was born in 1975 in Bakersfield, California, to parents Mike and JoNell Harvick, and has a younger sister, Amber. He began kart racing at an early age, after his parents bought him a go-kart as a kindergarten graduation gift. Harvick grew up a fan of IndyCar driver and fellow Bakersfield native Rick Mears, and raced go-karts with Mears' son Clint. He achieved considerable success on the go-kart racing circuit, earning seven national championships and two Grand National championships.
While in high school, Harvick began racing late models part-time in 1992 in the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Series. During the racing offseason, he competed on the North High School wrestling team, qualifying for a CIF Central Section title in his weight class his senior year. Harvick also played baseball, basketball, football, and soccer. After graduation, he attended Bakersfield College with the intention of majoring in architecture, but later dropped out in order to pursue a full-time racing career.

NASCAR career

Early career

Harvick made his Craftsman Truck Series debut in 1995 at the Mesa Marin Raceway, in his hometown of Bakersfield, where he started and finished 27th in his family-owned No. 72. He drove four races in the No. 72 the next season, his best finish was 11th at Mesa Marin. In 1997, he signed to drive the No. 75 for Spears Motorsports mid-season, posting two eighth-place finishes. He ran a full schedule the next season, posting three top-fives and finishing seventeenth in points. Harvick also moved up to the NASCAR Grand National Division, AutoZone West Series in 1997, and in 1998 Harvick won five races on his way to the Winston West Series championship while driving for Spears. He received his first real national exposure during the winter of 1997/1998 on ESPN2's coverage of the NASCAR Winter Heat Series at Tucson Raceway Park. In 1999, he drove the No. 98 Porter Cable Ford for Liberty Racing, finishing twelfth in points with six top-fives.

1999–2000: NASCAR Busch Series

On October 23, 1999, Harvick made his first NASCAR Busch Series start in the Kmart 200 at the Rockingham Speedway in the No. 2 Chevrolet. He would start 24th and finish 42nd due to engine failure. The race would be his only start in 1999. In 2000, Harvick would sign with Richard Childress Racing to drive the No. 2 Chevrolet for his first full Busch Series season. Despite failing to qualify for the second race of the season at Rockingham, Harvick would go on to win the NASCAR Busch Series Rookie of the Year award with three wins, eight top-five finishes, and sixteen top-tens as well as garnering a third-place points finish.

2001: Cup Series debut, replacing Earnhardt

For 2001, Childress planned to run Harvick in the No. 2 ACDelco Chevy in the Busch Series full-time again, while developing him into the Winston Cup Series with up to seven races in the No. 30 AOL Chevy. He planned to race Harvick for a full schedule in 2002. The death of Dale Earnhardt on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 changed Childress's plans, and Harvick began his first Cup race the following week in the Dura Lube 400 at Rockingham, filling the seat vacated by Earnhardt's passing in the renumbered No. 29 GM Goodwrench Service Plus Chevrolet.
On March 11, 2001, in the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, only three weeks after Earnhardt's death, Harvick won his first career Winston Cup race in just his third start by narrowly edging Jeff Gordon. He won the race by only six one-thousandths of a second. After the win, he paid tribute to Earnhardt, driving on the track backward with three fingers held aloft outside the driver's window as a show of honor and respect. At the time, this broke the record for earliest career start for a driver to win a race in the Modern Era, since surpassed by Jamie McMurray and Trevor Bayne, both of whom accomplished the feat in their second starts, and then by Shane van Gisbergen in 2023 in his debut.
He won his second career Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois. At the end of the season, he finished with two victories, six top-fives, and sixteen top-tens. Harvick was awarded the NASCAR Rookie of the Year Award and secured a ninth-place finish in the 2001 points standings. He also won the Busch Series championship, becoming the first driver to win the Busch Series championship while also driving full-time in the Winston Cup Series with a top-ten finish. Harvick would end the season winning six pole positions, and making 69 starts: 35 in the Cup Series, an appearance in the Winston, 33 in the Busch Series, and one in the Craftsman Truck Series at Richmond International Raceway for Rick Carelli.

2002

In 2002, Harvick spent the season concentrating on running the Cup Series and would only start four races in the Busch Series. Harvick began the 2002 season making his first Daytona 500 start on the outside pole next to Jimmie Johnson, but his day ended after triggering an eighteen-car crash on lap 148 while running second to Jeff Gordon, relegating him to a 36th-place finish. Later in the season, he was fined for a post-race incident with Greg Biffle at Bristol Motor Speedway. Harvick was also suspended for rough driving in a Truck race at Martinsville, in which he announced on his radio that he intentionally spun out driver Coy Gibbs, prompting NASCAR to immediately take him out of the race. Even though it was heard on the radio that he did, Harvick lied in a post-race interview, saying that he did not purposely wreck Gibbs. Harvick was banned from the Cup Series race the next day, with Kenny Wallace replacing him; he was also fined $35,000 and placed into another probation. Harvick rebounded and scored his first career Winston Cup pole position in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. Later in the season, he took his third Cup win at Chicagoland Speedway. This would prove to be one of the only bright spots in a disappointing season, as he finished 21st in the 2002 points standings with one win, one pole, five top-fives, and eight top-tens. Harvick became the 2002 IROC Champion in his first season in the Series, winning at California Speedway. In Trucks, Harvick began fielding his own No. 6 truck, driving himself in five races and winning at Phoenix.

2003

In the 2003 season, Harvick teamed with crew chief Todd Berrier in the Cup Series, with whom he had won the Busch championship in 2001. Together, they won the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis. Harvick and his team jumped to fifth in the 2003 point standings, coming within 252 points of Matt Kenseth. In the Busch Series, Harvick was teamed with Johnny Sauter, driving the No. 21 Hershey's-sponsored PayDay car. The two would combine for three wins, sixteen top-fives, and 24 top-tens, with Harvick posting all three wins. They would give Childress the NASCAR Busch Series owners' championship that season. Harvick competed in nineteen of the 34 races, and Sauter competed in the other fifteen. Harvick also scored eight pole positions and finished sixteenth in the final drivers' standings.

2004: First winless season

On August 28, during the 2004 Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Harvick had one of the most bizarre sequences of events happen to him. On lap 323, Harvick radioed to his crew that his right arm had fallen asleep and had gone numb, which made it difficult for him to operate his race car properly, and he needed a backup driver. The caution came out five laps later, and Harvick made his way onto pit road and was pulled out of the car. He was replaced by Kyle Petty, who was involved in an earlier wreck in the same race. Petty finished six laps down in 24th for Harvick. Harvick was still able to stay 8th in points but in the last 2 regular season races at California and Richmond, Harvick would finish in 28th and twelfth causing Harvick to fall from eighth to fifteenth in the standings missing out on the inaugural Chase for the Cup. Harvick's season was also known for his conflicts with Matt Kenseth at Pocono and rookie Kasey Kahne at Phoenix. While winless in the 2004 Cup season, Harvick placed third in the voting for Most Popular Driver. He had fourteen top-ten finishes and finished fourteenth in points. Harvick was paired with another driver in the Busch Series, rookie Clint Bowyer. They combined for one win, thirteen top-fives, and twenty top-tens in the No. 21 car, with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as a sponsor. Harvick drove the No. 29 Busch car in the final race of the season at Homestead–Miami Speedway in the Ford 300, which he would claim as his second win of the season. He finished 14th in the final standings. The No. 21 car finished fourth in the owner's standings.