Kevin Harvick
No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet
Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway
Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest:
• Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team travel to Darlington (S.C.) Raceway this weekend for Saturday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race.
• Chassis Info… The No. 29 team will utilize Chassis No. 374 from the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) stable. Harvick raced this Chevrolet in March at Auto Club Speedway, where he started seventh and finished fourth in the rain-shortened event.
• Darlington Stats… Harvick has made 15 NSCS starts at Darlington. In those races he has scored two top-fives and five top-10 finishes. He’s led 63 laps at the track and completed 93.9 percent (4,899 of 5,215) of the laps run in NSCS competition since 2001. Harvick holds an average starting position of 17.3 and an average finish of18.9 at Darlington.
• Loop Data… Since the implementation of NASCAR’s Loop Data Statistics in 2006, Harvick has competed in seven NSCS races at Darlington Raceway and holds a couple solid marks entering this weekend’s event, including: fifth in Closers and 10th in Fastest Laps Run (78).
• Looking Back… In last year’s race at Darlington, a late-race incident cost Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team a top-five finish. Despite leading 47 laps and earning an average running position of 4.4 during the race, he was credited with a 17th-place result.
• In the Rearview Mirror… Last weekend Harvick and the No. 29 team started 20th and were relegated to a 25th-place finish after a late-race wreck ended the team’s day just several laps shy of the checkered flag.
• 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. Fans can also interact with Harvick on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/OfficialKevinHarvick.
Kevin Harvick discusses Darlington Raceway: “As you go to Darlington, obviously you see the deep history of the sport and it’s probably the place highest on my list to try to get my first win there, so I’m looking forward to going there this weekend.”
Why would it mean so much to add your name to the list of Darlington winners? “It’d be pretty awesome just for the fact that everyone knows the significance of the Southern 500 and to win at Darlington is something as adriver that you want to check off your checklist when you have the opportunity t. We’ve been close at Darlington, but we’ve just got to put that check in the right box.”
What makes racing at Darlington such a challenge for the drivers and teams? “The track was originally not designed for the cars to be running as fast as they are today. The track’s very narrow and you carry a lot of speed. From a driver’s standpoint, it’s very challenging just to keep the car off the wall, but it’s also a lot of fun to drive, too.”
Talk us through a lap around Darlington. “Well, any lap around Darlington is a lap where you have to be paying attention to what’s going on because you can get yourself in trouble at any point on the race track. You carry a lot of speed into Turn 1 and you run right up the banking right up next to the wall and right back into the throttle. As you come back down the hill you might have to breathe the throttle a little bit, but it’s a lot of fun coming out of Turn 2 as it kind of shoots you down the backstretch. Turns 3 and 4 are probably the hardest because you carry so much speed off of (Turn) 2 into (Turn) 3 and the line kind of moves around a bit there. It’s probably the easiest place to get in the wall. Well it’s pretty easy to get in the wall anywhere, but definitely the easiest place to get into the wall is the middle of (Turns) 3 and 4.”