NO. 3: KEVIN HARVICK
Kevin Harvick enters the 2015 Sprint Cup Series in an unfamiliar yet highly desirable position: defending champion.
Coming off his first season at Stewart-Haas Racing, and the first with crew chief Rodney Childers, Harvick will attempt to become the first back-to-back Cup champion since Jimmie Johnson in 2010.
Harvick matched a career high mark for victories in a season last year with five and his win in the second event at Phoenix set the table for his title run. With the blueprint for championship success in place, Harvick knows how important another early victory will be in 2015.
"Everybody knows that winning is the ultimate thing in the end," Harvick said. "And I think as you look at those first few races and everybody kind of understands the point system a little bit better and the intensity that you need to show towards trying to win races so that you can get that golden ticket, I guess you could say, into the Chase and really the earlier that you get it, the more time you have to build and fix problems that you have with your race team."
Childers, who started the No. 4 program from scratch, had the luxury of time last year to put his Chase foundation in place after winning so early.
"We kind of called it quits at a certain point of the year, and we took, I guess, seven cars apart down to a bare chassis, and we said these are our Chase cars," Childers said. "And we put all new bodies on every one of them, new parts on every one of them, and we got ready to go racing. I think that showed from Chicago all the way to the end of it."
Another freaky-fast start would go a long way toward a second consecutive title for Harvick's team under NASCAR's new championship format.
"It allowed us to plan out where we thought we needed to be with cars, and if you wanted to make changes, you could have all those cars and you could have a backup plan for the backup plan leading into the Chase," Harvick said. "The earlier you can get that win, the better off you're going to be to prepare for the Chase."
Even with all the challenges of getting the new team's program in place, Childers proved to be a master of preparation in his first year at Stewart-Haas Racing. Harvick, who joked that he and Childers dated for a year before joining forces, has seemingly found the perfect partner to chase championships with as he approaches 40.
"I feel like we're pretty straight up and honest with each other, and that makes it a lot of fun, and I think that that bleeds over into the team," Harvick said.
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