Author: Bob Pockrass
Date: April 6, 2015
Rodney Childers sees people frequently taking photographs of the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 car as his team works on it in the garage, as it goes through tech, as it sits on pit road prior to qualifying or the race. The crew chief can nearly hear the whispers of people wondering what his team has done -- legally or illegally -- to make his cars go fast.
He swears he has no big tricks up his sleeve, and for the most part, he really hasn't changed much in the cars since the end of last year, when Kevin Harvickwon the final two races on his way to the Sprint Cup Series championship.
But to many, Childers and Harvick have something that no one else has. The big question: Does the magic come from inside the car, or does it really just come down to the people who work the wrenches and the strategy, and the one who works the wheel?
"They've got something figured out, and they're doing some things very clever and Kevin is an amazing driver," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said matter-of-factly, without sour grapes or even that much jealousy. He drives for Hendrick Motorsports, which has an alliance with SHR. And Harvick drives for Earnhardt's JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series.
Some drivers stand up front in the minds of older generations of race fans. Harry Gant, as handsome as ever at 75, is one of those.
So if anyone should know "the secret," Earnhardt should be that person.
But he apparently doesn't know what makes the Harvick car so fast so often. He's in good company. Earnhardt and the rest of the Sprint Cup garage continue to chase Harvick, who had a string of eight top-two finishes snapped two Sundays ago at Martinsville, where he appeared just mortal in eighth.
His average finish in the six races this year, a gaudy 2.7, is the best in the series, well above Joey Logano (5.5), Martin Truex Jr. (6.2) and Kurt Busch (7.3 over three races).
Harvick has led more than twice as many laps and miles than any other driver in 2015. Everyone else judges and rates their performance based on where it runs in relation to Harvick, fairly or unfairly, considering just how stout he finished 2014 and carried it over into this year.
"Rodney is an amazing talent on the pit box and they've just got some amazing speed in practice," Earnhardt said. "At Vegas in practice, they're three-tenths faster than everybody else and you're like, 'Golly, what do they got going on?'
"It don't last forever so he's got to enjoy it while it's happening. And sooner or later, what they know will be common knowledge and somebody will be in search of the next advantage and find it. They've got it right now, so it's our job to go out there and try to get smart and figure out what they're doing that's helping their cars and helping Kevin."
The fact that Earnhardt made those remarks can cause fans to react incredulously, considering that in some ways, Earnhardt and Harvick could be considered teammates. The Hendrick and Stewart-Haas teams share plenty of notes with their alliance.
Crew chief Chad Knaus led Jimmie Johnson to five consecutive titles from 2006 to 2010 and then another title in 2013, and doesn't seem to believe Childers has held anything back from his company.
"People said that for years with the No. 48 [of Johnson] that we were holding out on maybe the No. 24 [of teammate Jeff Gordon] or whatever the situation may be," Knaus said. "The facts are, man, that they are clicking. They have an understanding for one another that was established quickly.
"They have been able to grow that. The more they grow it and nurture it, the better it is going to be. The challenge is longevity."
Harvick and Childers have one advantage over many. SHR formed this team at the end of 2013 specifically for Harvick, who hand-picked Childers, who then hand-picked the rest of the team.
They came to SHR to work for Childers and/or Harvick with a championship in their sights, and they already have a ring to prove they made the right decision.
"This is a special group of guys that really gets along, on and off the race track; and are all here for the same reasons," Harvick said. "They all want to be a part of this team and work with Rodney and myself and be at Stewart-Haas Racing.
"When you have everything line up like that, it's pretty rare. And I'm just lucky to be a part of it."
Keeping up with Kevin Harvick has proved difficult to do since the final two races of last year.Justin Edmonds/Getty Images
As strong as Harvick ran in 2014, the new rules package for 2015 has fallen into Harvick's wheelhouse, Childers said. The lower horsepower makes the cars drive much more like the Xfinity cars. Harvick has two career championships and 46 victories in that series.
"The new rules package has just weighed into Kevin's favor," Childers said. "He's always been good in the Xfinity cars with the way he controls the throttle and the brake and all that kind of stuff. Our setups haven't changed. Our bodies haven't changed. Our chassis haven't changed. Like really, nothing.
"The biggest thing is it's just more of a team thing than anything. It's not that we found something that works. We haven't changed anything from what was working for us last year."
Few in the garage are convinced that this is just a bunch of happy wrenchmen with a determined driver. Other teams have good chemistry; they don't run fast.
Childers reacts to all the attention with a mix of humor and frustration. NASCAR took tires from the Harvick team at Phoenix and California as it sought to find out if anyone was bleeding air from its tires, amid rumors in the garage. NASCAR hammered the Richard Childress Racing team of Ryan Newman last week, but so far Harvick's tires have checked out.
"Whether it's people taking pictures or doing whatever or having your tires checked, it's kind of flattering because you'd much rather be in that position than you would be running in the back every week," Childers said. "It does get aggravating at times with people trying to take pictures.
"From a NASCAR standpoint, they're just doing their job. If I was one of the other competitors, I would expect the same thing."
The other competitors sit and wonder just what that Harvick team has as he pulls away from them on the track.
"We know their cars and their engines," Gordon said. "We know a lot, but not everything, about their setups and they know about ours as well. When you're getting beat out there on the track, it pushes you to try to find more.
"You start looking at photographs and what little, small details are being done. We do that with our teammates and we do that with Stewart-Haas because we have that information and because they're the best team out there right now. They're the fastest cars."
Earnhardt said they also have the fastest driver for the moment. He and Childers, good friends who used to compete against each other as drivers, recently talked about how they believe Harvick finally has shown his true talent after a 13-year stint at Childress.
"We always looked at him as people racing against him as the guy who was the closer," said Childers, referring to the Harvick nickname. "He would hang in there all day and get the best out of his car and get a good finish. Well, now it's like, 'Holy crap, he's got all this speed all the time.'
"It doesn't matter what kind of racetrack he's at or what, he just does a great job."
Earnhardt said that job extends to outside the car, where he has now seen just how well Harvick interacts with the team when Harvick drives for him in Xfinity. He has won two Xfinity races this year with a new crew chief leading the JR Motorsports No. 88 Xfinity team.
"He is way better than anybody ever thought," Earnhardt said. "He proved that last year winning the championship. ... He's very driven. His effort really continues outside the car. That's how we get faster [in Xfinity], and that's how our program gets better.
"He's real plugged in, just in the simplest details about the car and how he thinks they can be better and how we can perform better. He's . . . a one-of-a-kind type of guy."
With one-of-a-kind type of cars?
"You are never bulletproof, just for the fact that there are so many things that can go wrong in a race," Harvick said. "The circumstances, they are hard to get everything to line up just to win a race, to be able to be a part of everything that we have been able to accomplish over the last little bit. We have been fortunate to have good luck on our side.
"We have been fortunate to have fast race cars and have a lot of things line up for us. At any given moment you could start having the bad luck like we had at the beginning of last year. In life in general you are never bulletproof. About the time you start thinking that there will be, I always tell people, the karma train will come run you over. You just keep your head down and try to continue working."
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