Kevin Harvick compares manufacture body shape: “Ours was built for big spoilers and big splitters.”
A year and two weeks ago, down came the Chevrolet banners and up with the Ford emblems. Stewart-Haas Racing brought their first Ford to the track.
Right out of the gate they picked up a Daytona 500 win. However, beyond that, the team struggled to find their footing before coming on strong at the tail end of the season.
In 2018, Stewart-Haas Racing is fast. Back-to-back wins for Kevin Harvick. But, this years success began at the tail end of 2017.
“2017 was a really good season,” Harvick reflects while speaking with Mobil 1 The Grid. “I think when you stop, step back and look at how everything turned out. It’s a huge credit to the organization and all the people at Stewart-Haas Racing.”
“Switching over to Ford, basically rebuilding the whole company. It was a pretty phenomenal feat to be in the last race of the year and have a chance to win the championship at Homestead. It was very rewarding.”
Biggest challenges
“The biggest challenges were early in the season. Some of the biggest hurdles that we had to overcome were from an aero standpoint. Just understand the car. What pushed the buttons to make more downforce.”
“As we went through the year we learned a lot about our car. As the season ended I still felt like we had room to gain. But, we were out of races.”
“The end of the season is when we really started to hit our stride on the mile and half race tracks. And that’s always been our strong point as I’ve been at SHR over the past four years.”
At Texas, that all changed. Kevin Harvick passed Martin Truex Jr, on the outside lane at Texas. That was certainly a see-saw moment in momentum that brings us to this current point. Martin Truex Jr and Toyota in general dominated 1.5 mile tracks until late in the 2017 season at Texas.
“As we got to Texas, you could sense that we were getting frustrated having not one on mile and a half race tracks. That was something that was really needed. At the right time, at the end of the year.”
The current Ford Fusion body shape made it’s debut in 2016. In 2017, Toyota brought a new Camry to the track. For 2018, Chevrolet introduced the Chevy Camaro.
“We had a very unbalanced race car with the rules package that we currently have. Compared to the other two manufactures who’ve had a re-design on their car, built around this package. Ours was built for big spoilers and big splitters.”
Since 2016, the rules have changed dramatically. A massive reduction in the spoiler was followed by a second reduction of the same. Yet, Ford Performance have somehow managed to rebalance their old machines to fit the current regulations and make them fast.
“The light at the end of the tunnel is glowing brightly. I still don’t really feel that we’ve come close to reaching the potential of where we could be.
This weekend, Kevin Harvick heads to ISM Raceway. If there’s a track that’s most dominated by a single driver, it’s that one. Harvick owns Phoenix. Are we looking at 3 in a row for Harvick, Ford and Stewart-Haas?
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Kevin Harvick | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford Performance | NASCAR
