NASCAR’s best driver of 2020? Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin have won half the races
Even though Kevin Harvick’s name seems to appear in NASCAR headlines weekly with his constant race wins, the No. 4 driver said he wouldn’t necessarily call this season his “best.”
“I think 2015 and 2018 were great years,” Harvick said. “We closed 2014 really good. It’s hard to tell what the end of the year is going to bring as far as this could be the last win, you might win six more. You just never know.”
Harvick has placed in the top five in the last nine NASCAR Cup Series races, winning the most recent two races Saturday and Sunday at Michigan to put him tied for 10th place with Rusty Wallace on NASCAR’s all-time race wins list.
The veteran driver has 55 career Cup wins in 704 starts, and won the Cup championship in 2014. And even though Harvick wouldn’t yet call the year his best, he’s statistically on pace to make it his best despite a season that began in unprecedented fashion.
The coronavirus pandemic has added a slew of uncharted elements into weekly racing for NASCAR and its teams. Without practice or qualifying rounds before events — a decision made by NASCAR to limit track time and to help teams save money — cars show up at the racetrack without any testing, and drivers race them without any practice.
“What if I told the Cup garage two years ago, ‘We’re gonna go to Bristol and we’re not going to have any practice. We’re just going to line ‘em up?’” NBC Sports NASCAR analyst and former driver Jeff Burton told the Observer in July. “There would have been a revolt.”
The whole season’s been a learn-as-you-go type deal, but it’s one Harvick and his Ford Mustang team have adapted to exceptionally well. Since NASCAR returned to racing in May at Darlington, Harvick has won six races, the most in the current series. He leads in points by 137 and is projected to lead the field into playoffs in points if the roll continues. There’s no reason to think it won’t.
“Our pit crew guys have really stepped up and made a huge difference with what we’re doing on the racetrack,” No. 4 crew chief Rodney Childers said after Sunday’s race. “That’s a huge deal. The other side of it is having better racecars, unloading better racecars. I think every year it kind of swings each way, who has their stuff together from a race team standpoint.”
At this point in the season — with just four races left before the playoffs — it’s safe to say that Harvick has secured his name in the NASCAR “greats” conversation, not because he tops the all-time wins list, but because he is consistently winning under conditions that Hall of Fame drivers, such as Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon, have never faced before.
“I think COVID makes it unique,” Harvick said of the season. “Just the circumstances that it takes to get to the racetrack. I think a lot of that just goes into how prepared our team is and the details that they’re covering to get the cars right, get them close, come to the racetrack, watch the pit crew perform, watch Rodney make great calls. I get to race the car on the racetrack and do the best that I can.”
Childers said it’s been “one of the best” seasons his team has had as a group, noting that 2018 was a special year since the team was able to win eight points races, plus the All-Star Race. But Childers, like his driver, noted that there is still a lot of post-season racing to go.
And with each passing week, it’s looking more like Harvick will have to fend off Denny Hamlin and the speed of the No. 11 team. After an adequate run at Michigan on Saturday, Hamlin raced in Harvick’s rearview mirror Sunday for a second place finish, in which he followed less than a tenth of a second behind Harvick at the checkered flag.
“It’s fun,” Hamlin said of the ongoing battle between the two drivers. “I definitely don’t like not winning. But we’re competitive. We’ve given ourselves a shot here these last few weeks. We’ve been right there in contention in every race. Certainly that’s encouraging.”
Hamlin, who said his No. 11 Toyota Camry still had to get faster, said Sunday that he thinks if he and his team “tighten up a few things,” they’ll be right there where we need to be in the postseason. Hamlin and Harvick combined have won half of NASCAR’s Cup races so far.
While there is still time for other drivers, such as Brad Keselowski, who has three wins and is ranked second in points, to race into a final-four conversation, at this point, Harvick and Hamlin are the teams to beat. Hamlin said the wins aren’t a “momentum” thing though.
“Momentum is week‑to‑week,” Hamlin said. “It’s probably a little bit oversold, peaking at the right time. All that stuff is probably a little bit oversold for a story more so than it really is.”
“I just think that if you’re fast, you’re going to find a way,” Hamlin added. “If you’re smart, you’ll find a way to make it to the front. If you’ve got both, you’re going to be a force to be reckoned with.
The No. 11 driver also made an important point: Teams can battle all season, grind through the playoffs and make it to the final four, but the championship winner is determined by one race.
“I think all-in-all we have all the pieces of the puzzle put together,” Hamlin said. “It’s just, if you want a championship, you have to run good really in one race, and that’s all that really matters.”
That’s why Harvick, who’s won a whopping six races already this season, wouldn’t call it his “best” year despite consistently winning through unprecedented obstacles. Because 2020 is not over. Not yet.
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
