Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Bad Boy Buggies Chevrolet SS team travel to Kansas Speedway this week for the STP 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race.
Chassis Info... The No. 29 team will utilize chassis No. 373 from the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) stable this weekend. Harvick raced this car to a ninth-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March and scored an eighth-place finish with it in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway last May.
Heading Home… The trip to Kansas Speedway will take Aaron Schields, rear tire carrier on the No. 29 team, back to his home state. The Goodland, Kan., native moved to North Carolina in 2005 to work in NASCAR. He joined the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) team in August 2009.
Fan Q&A at Kansas… Race fans can see Harvick at the Team Chevy Stage at Kansas Speedway on Sunday, April 21 at 9:15 a.m. CT as he participates in a fan question-and-answer session.
Leading Team Pocono… Harvick will serve as captain for Team Pocono during the second annual Pocono Raceway vs. Dover International Speedway softball tournament on Wednesday, April 24. The celebrity event will take place at Metro Bank Park in Harrisburg, Pa., with gates opening to the fans at 4 p.m. ET. For more information about the event, visit www.poconoraceway.com.
Statistically Speaking… Harvick has made 14 NSCS starts at Kansas Speedway and has earned one top five and six top-10 finishes. He has completed 97 percent of the laps run in those 14 races (3,576 of 3,686), and holds an average starting position of 19.9 and an average finish of 12.9 at the 1.5-mile track.
Loop Data… Since the inception of NASCAR's Loop Data Statistics in 2006, Harvick has competed in nine NSCS races at Kansas Speedway and owns a few impressive marks heading into this weekend's event, including: first in green flag passes (782), seventh in laps in the top 15 (1,754), eighth in fastest drivers late in a run (162.228 mph), ninth in quality passes (358), ninth in speed in traffic (162.517 mph) and 10th in fastest laps run (79).
Harvick Discusses Racing at Kansas Speedway
What are your thoughts on the new racing surface at Kansas?
“Anytime you see new pavement, as a driver you kind of cringe. (Kansas Speedway) obviously did a great job of paving the race track and sometimes a great job does result in a great race. I remember the race being fairly good for a newly-paved race track and it will be interesting to see how much grip the pavement has lost when we go back to race there this year. I know (Kansas) has some rough winters. As the race track ages I think obviously the racing gets better, but it’s just a lot of strategy – two tires, no tires – to keep track position.”
What have you learned about newly-paved tracks overall and how they age?
“You see a lot of race tracks (Charlotte for example) that really haven’t lost any speed.I’ve said this in the past that I think as you look forward the asphalt people want to see the race track never deteriorate, but as a race car driver you want to see the rocks and things come through the asphalt to wear out the tires. It’s hard to tell. You never know what kind of asphalt they’ve used. Some of them age quickly and some of them never age. It just depends on the type of asphalt they used.”
How has the new banking configuration affected racing at Kansas?
“We go to so many tracks that you really don’t even pay attention to what the banking is. You just try to find the fastest place to drive around the track. Obviously with new asphalt (Kansas Speedway) had a lot of speed, but the groove was very narrow just because of the new asphalt. You hope that it loses some grip and widens out like it used to be.”