Nick Harvey works as the competition manager for the Chip Ganassi Racing Xfinity Team
He’s an Englishman, in the NASCAR garage area. Is he lost?
Typically, the European folk spend their time tinkering with what may or may not be a movable aerodynamic device. They tend to work for racing teams on the other side of the pond on cars that feature wheels hanging from beyond fenders.
Yet, Nick Harvey is a man from England. An Englishman, deeply embedded in the door bangin’, fender crinkling world of NASCAR stock car racing.
Watch the video interview below.
Nick Harvey
“It’s a different culture,” Nick Harvey tells Mobil 1 The Grid.
The basics of the car are quite old fashioned.
-Nick Harvey
“It’s a strange beast because a lot of people look at it and it’s a relatively crude car. The basics of the car are quite old fashioned. Sheet metal and what have you.”
“But, there’s an amazing amount of engineering that goes on in NASCAR, behind the scenes.”
Chip Ganassi hired Nick Harvey to manage his NASCAR Xfinity Series team. What’s involved in that? Well for starters it’s a two car team. Each time has 10 people at the track, each week. Times two, Harvey is in charge of the managing side of 20 crew guys. That includes the over the wall crew, the truck driver, the PR guy and everything in between.
“It’s much smaller than the cup. But we’re able to utilize a lot of what they learn on the cup side and put it to good use here.”
Kyle Larson is a part-time NASCAR Xfinity Series driver for Chip Ganassi Racing.
“Nick’s just a really important part of the team,” Kyle Larson states. “He’s involved in every aspect of the Xfinity team. I think that’s why you’ve seen that team take a big step up this year.”
“Kyle’s great,” Nick Harvey speaks on his part-time #42 driver. “The first thing is he’s late to every session because he’s always running for the cup guy. They’re always trying to debrief him before he gets over here.”
There’s a lot of talk of completely eliminating the NASCAR Cup Series drivers from the Xfinity side. The fans are vocal on it, for the most part. As a result, NASCAR has stepped in to further limit Cup regulars from Xfinity competition. They are doubling down on new limits that were already in place for 2017.
Related: 2018 NASCAR Xfinity competition limits
“We feel that the Xfinity part of it is a big piece of that puzzle for him,”Harvey states of the cup regular running Xfinity races. “That extra track time. He’s able to figure out pit road, on and off pit road. We think it’s quite important for him.”
“Anytime you can find somebody with experience outside of stock car racing in think they’re good for your team. He’s got a lot of that experience,” Larson states of the Englishman.
“My wife’s American,” Nick Harvey talks of his move to NC. “I’ve adopted it as my second home. I love living in North Carolina. It’s a beautiful place to live.”
It doesn’t matter whether we’re racing shopping trolly’s or F1 cars or Indycar’s.
-Nick Harvey
“The racing itself… A lot of people from Europe look at this and go, ‘NASCAR? Really?’ Honestly, it doesn’t matter whether we’re racing shopping trolly’s or F1 cars or Indycar’s.”
“To me, it’s just all racing. There’s no better racing, in the world, really, than NASCAR. It’s the most competitive. We do more races than anyone else. It’s very enjoyable,” the Englishman concludes.
No, he’s not lost. Nick Harvey is very happy to be in the NASCAR garage area.
Tyler Reddick and Brennan Poole are the primary NASCAR Xfinity Series drivers for Chip Ganassi Racing. Tyler Reddick won at Kentuck Speedway and Brennan Poole did grabbed a pole at Daytona.
Kyle Larson has went to Xfinity victory lane, 3 times in 2017. Additionally, Alex Bowman filled the seat of the #42. Bowman picked up his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win 3 weeks ago at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
