KEVIN HARVICK, DRIVER OF THE NO. 20 PENNZOIL-PLATINUM IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and talked about winning the All-Star last year; owning a team as well as being a driver,

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN OWNING YOUR OWN TEAM? “I think for me it’s just the fact that I get to go and really relax and just kind of, I don’t go play golf or anything else like that.  Building a foundation for my future when I’m done driving is probably the biggest reason why I do it.”

DO YOU EVER SEE YOURSELF DRIVING FOR YOURSELF ON A FULL-TIME BASIS?  “I do that now.  I drive my full-time car right now in the Nationwide Series so I do that, pretty much every week.”

IS THERE ANY EXTRA PRESSURE COMING INTO THE ALL-STAR BEING THE CHAMPION FROM LAST YEAR?   “I think when you’ve experienced winning you definitely want to go out and try to experience that again.  For us it was a really cool night with everybody from Pennzoil and Shell being here.  You see a lot of Pennzoil signs all over the track so I guess there’s a little more added pressure this year.”

TALK ABOUT WHAT IT MEANT TO WIN THE ALL-STAR RACE LAST YEAR.  “Well for us this is one of the race tracks that has probably has not produced the best results for us.  We put it all together in the All-Star race last year, it came down to one of those moves you wouldn’t make on a normal week. We were able to go on the outside of Burton who was on the pole of the restart there. It’s just cool to win here and win the All-Star race was neat because it’s one of the events that everybody wants to win.  And now we’ve been fortunate to win a lot of the big races with the All-Star race and the Brickyard and the Daytona 500.  It was a cool night to experience. I got up the next day and went and raced in Iowa.”

TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH THE ENTIRE TEAM IS INVOLVED IN THE ALL-STAR WEEKEND. “This weekend is so different from every other week that we go to. The Pit Crew Challenge is the night for the pit crew guys to shine, my team in particular. They have been the most consistent part of our race team since I have been Cup racing.  The pit crew has always been good on the No. 29 Chevrolet and a lot of the guys have been the same for several years now. Those guys are the consistent bunch, our cars might get off or the driver might get off, whatever the case may be, they are always there week in and week out whether we are running good or bad, they have been good. So this whole week, is all about those guys and then the fans all week long. The whole All-Star event, the Pit Crew Challenge, the Pennzoil Burnout Competition, all events are a lot of fun to be a part of.”