Harvick details the race with Clint Bowyer; Explains that Tony Stewart had a goal to help him at Dover specifically when he first joined the team
Kevin Harvick returned to victory lane once more. This time he did it at Dover International Speedway, topping his teammate Clint Bowyer.
Dover is a race that Harvick struggled with in the early part of his career. Below Harvick explains that Tony Stewart had a goal of helping Harvick at Dover specifically when he first joined the team.
With 85 laps to go, the rain came and the race was red flagged. Kevin Harvick sat on pit road in 2nd place. At that point, he thought that was the karma train coming to get him.
“I’m thinkin, ‘Oh my god, I’ve talked so much trash to him all weekend and he’s already told me the karma train is going to run me over.’ When it started raining.”
“We had a fun weekend. Just because, when you come to Dover I feel like Clint is one of the people that you’re going to have to beat. Just because of the fact that he’s been so good for so many years here.”
“Like I told him, ‘If I’m not gonna win this race today. You need to win this race. So, get up there and go after it.’ Cause at that point we didn’t know what was going to happen during the pit stop.”
“To be able to race with him is a lot of fun. I’d much rather be able to keep it in the house than racing with somebody else.”
“It’s fun with Clint and I had a really good battle with Brad for about 50 laps at the end of the second stage. We went back and forth and finally were able to get by him. But, that was a lot of fun.”
Kevin Harvick and Stewart-Haas Racing as a whole had the cars to beat since the practice sessions on Friday.
Does that make it easier or harder?
“It’s actually a lot harder. Believe it or not, because you don’t wanna screw it up.”
“We had a really good car from the time we unloaded. I think you could tell that from where we qualified. That’s usually not my strong point, qualifying.”
“We had three great practices and everything just kinda fell into place. When they dropped the green flag it was definitely still good. It was just one of those weekends where the car was spot on from the time we got here.”
“Everybody is just so detail oriented. I feel like we’re playoff racing on a weekly basis.”
Harvick + Dover
It took Kevin Harvick 27 races over 15 years to win at Dover International Speedway. He’s now won twice in a 4 year time spread. Since 2014, he’s led 1011 laps in Dover, Delaware.
“We were always just not very good up here. When I started at Stewart-Haas Racing one of Tony’s main goals was to run good up here. He knew how much it frustrated me.”
“From the very first day that we rolled in here in 2014 we ran well. I’ve had chances to win pretty much every race since we’ve come up here.”
“I like driving here. We just never had the speed that it took in the beginning of my career to do what we’ve been doing over the last few years.”
Harvick has 4 top 10’s in his last 9 Dover starts since joining Stewart-Haas Racing. In 3 of those 9 races, he’s started from the front row.
More
Related: Back at Stewart Haas, Tony Gibson is tying all 4 cars together as 1 unit
Related: Harvick’s first Dover trophy ended up with a broken arm
Related: Dover International Speedway: Results
Related: Clint Bowyer was a walking party after his Martinsville win
LINKS
Clint Bowyer | Kevin Harvick | Stewart-Haas Racing | Dover International Speedway | NASCAR
