No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet
Wonderful Pistachios 400 at Richmond International Raceway
Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
• Following a seventh-place finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway that locked him into a top-10 spot for the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet, will compete in the Wonderful Pistachios 400 at Richmond International Raceway (RIR) on Saturday night.
• Harvick will be available to members of the media in the RIR infield media center at 8:30 a.m. on Friday.
• The No. 29 team’s Chevrolet and the other Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) cars will be adorned with decals commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11 this weekend to honor the fallen heroes of the New York Police Department, the Fire Department of the City of New York and the Port Authority Police of New York and New Jersey. The decals, which the RCR cars first carried in 2002, were provided by Police Officer Victor DiPierro of the NYPD’s 49th Precinct in Bronx, N.Y.
• The No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team will race chassis No. 332 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) stable. The No. 29 team has utilized this car four times in 2011, earning a fourth-place finish at Phoenix International Raceway (2/27), a win at Martinsville Speedway (4/3), a 12th-place finish in the season’s first race at Richmond (4/30) and a 21st-place effort at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (7/17).
• In 21 starts at RIR, Harvick has amassed one pole award (September 2005), one win (September 2006), five top-five and 13 top-10 finishes. His average starting position at RIR is 17.8 and he holds a 12th-place average finishing position. Harvick has completed 98.6 percent (8,286 of 8,403) of the laps run in NSCS competition at the track since 2001 and he’s led a total of 727 laps.
• In last year’s fall race at RIR, Harvick started in the 20th position and brought home a ninth-place finish. In the spring race at the track this year he started and finished 12th.
• In the last seven seasons, Harvick and the No. 29 team have earned one win, four top five and 11 top-10 finishes at RIR. His average finish at the track during that time is 8.846.
• Harvick holds quite a few impressive Loop Data statistics at the 0.75-mile track leading into Saturday’s race, including: first in laps run in the top 15 (4,768); first in quality passes (420); third in average running position (7.724); third in driver rating (110.2); third in fastest drivers early in a run; third in fastest laps run (358); third in green-flag speed; third in laps led (680); third in speed in traffic; sixth in fastest on restarts; and eighth in fastest drivers late in a run.
• On Saturday, Harvick will visit the Team Chevy Racing Display, located near the midway display area at RIR for a Q&A with fans at approximately 3:50 p.m. In addition, the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team’s spotter, Billy Odea, will join fellow RCR team spotters for a Q&A with fans at 3:30 p.m. at the Chevy display.
• In addition to racing the Budweiser Chevrolet in Saturday night’s NSCS race, Harvick will also be at the wheel of the Kevin Harvick Inc. No. 33 Rheem Tankless Water Heaters Chevrolet in Nationwide Series competition on Friday night. Live race coverage will air on ESPN2 starting with the pre-race show at 7 p.m. ET. MRN Radio affiliates and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the event.
• This week in Budweiser Racing history: Darrell Waltrip took the Budweiser Racing Team to Victory Lane in back-to-back fall races at RIR in 1984 and 1985. On Sept. 9, 1984, Waltrip started from the pole position and led a dominating 312 laps of the 400-lap race en route to scoring the win in the Wrangler Sanfor-Set 400. The following year he started 22nd and led 84 laps before claiming the checkered flag in the No. 11 Budweiser Chevrolet owned by Junior Johnson.
• For the online version of the Budweiser Racing media guide, please visit http://www.budracingmedia.com.
• Follow along each weekend with Harvick and the team on Twitter. Check out @KevinHarvick for behind-the-scenes information straight from the driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet. Get live updates from the track each weekend from @Black29Car, the PR team for Harvick. Also, follow @RCRracing and @RCR29KHarvick for additional information about the Richard Childress Racing organization.
Kevin Harvick on racing at Richmond:
Why do you think you’ve been so successful at Richmond? “When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time racing at Phoenix and really from day one I’ve been successful on the flatter-type race tracks through the years. I think it’s just kind of how I was brought up. Richmond has been a very good race track for us as a team and it’s probably been our best track on paper. We’ve been fortunate to win there and we expect to be competitive and run up front.”
Why do you think Richmond is the favorite short track of most of the drivers? “Because it is racy and you can move around the race track. The track has become pretty worn out, and I think as a lot of us were used to that sealer being put on the race track through the years where every time you came back there it was a little different every time how the track would react. It has enough speed and it has enough room to move around and race. You just get that short track feel along with that intermediate feel with the speed to get all the race tracks in there and everybody just enjoys it.”
Talk about the art of short-track racing and whether it’s developed at all over the last few years. “I don’t think its developed like the bump drafting by any means but I think as you look at (Richmond International Raceway), it’s a little bit different than a Martinsville or Bristol just for the fact that you do carry a fair amount of speed and use a fair amount of brake, but it’s just different. The corners are a little more sweeping and it’s not just a bottom grove like at Martinsville so there’s not as much beating and banging as there would be there. It’s a fun race track. You kind of get that speed and that short-track feel all in the same package so it’s definitely one of my favorites.”