Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet SS travel to Kentucky Speedway this weekend to compete in the Quaker State 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS).
Chassis Info… The No. 4 team will utilize Chassis No. 850 in Saturday’s race. Harvick raced this car to a second-place finish in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May.
Kentucky Stats... Harvick has three prior NSCS starts at Kentucky Speedway. He has earned one top-10 finish and has an average start of 15.0 and average finish of 12.3.
Loop Data... Harvick owns a number of impressive marks in NASCAR’s Loop Data scoring system at Kentucky Speedway heading into this weekend's event, including: fourth in quality passes (110 passes); fourth in green flag passes (225 passes); fifth in average running position (12.161); fifth in laps in the top 15 (628 laps); sixth in fastest drivers late in a run (170.830 mph); sixth in speed in traffic (170.189 mph); sixth in fastest on restarts (161.553 mph); seventh in closers (2.3 positions gained); eighth in green flag passes speed (170.830 mph); and ninth in fastest drivers early in a run (171.845 mph).
A Look Back… During last year’s Quaker State 400, Harvick started 22nd and finished 10th.
Double Duty… In addition to driving the No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet on Saturday night, Harvick will compete in Friday night’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race in the No. 5 Kroger/P&G Chevrolet Camaro for JR Motorsports. ESPN will provide live TV coverage of the event starting at 7 p.m. ET while PRN radio affiliates and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will air the radio broadcast.
Salute... Now through August 15, beer drinkers can enter a code contained inside specially marked packages of Budweiser on Budweiser.com/donate to trigger a $1 donation to Folds of Honor, accounting for up to $1 million combined with wholesaler contributions for a more than $3 million total donation to Folds of Honor in 2014. Through scholarships and other assistance, Folds of Honor gives back to the families of soldiers killed or disabled in service to our country. Since first partnering with Folds of Honor Foundation in 2010, Budweiser and its wholesalers have raised nearly $10 million for military families, accounting for thousands of scholarships across the country.
Budweiser #SpeedTweets… Budweiser is tapping into race fans increasing affinity for social media by using Twitter to engage in a new and unprecedented way. The brewer’s latest effort, #SpeedTweets, is a Twitter-based weekly competition that will award 19 fans a trip to Charlotte, N.C., to race go-karts with Harvick. The contest runs the first 19 weeks of the 2014 NSCS schedule, with Budweiser’s official racing Twitter account, @BudweiserRacing, posting challenges throughout each race weekend. Participants (21 and older only) are required to register at Budweiser.com/SpeedTweets must follow @BudweiserRacing, and must reply to @BudweiserRacing with the hashtag #SpeedTweets in order for their answers to be considered. For information on contest rules and regulations, please visit http://speedtweets.com/legal.html.
Harvick on Racing at Kentucky Speedway
What makes Kentucky Speedway unique compared to other 1.5-mile tracks? “It’s the newest, oldest track we go to. Kentucky Speedway is very rough. The corners are longer so they’re not as sharp, but the roughness of the racing surface is really what makes it unique in my mind. There is still a lot of grip, but the track has become rough over the years.”
What is it about Turn 3 at Kentucky Speedway that makes it so difficult for drivers? “Turn 3 is just really flat getting intothe corner. You have more banking as you exit the corner, so you kind of drive into the banking and it progressively gets a little bit more as you come off of the corner. It’s really flat right there, and you are carrying a lot of speed. You just wind up being loose into the corner for the most part. As you go through the weekend that will be the toughest spot to navigate for sure.”