CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When a 25-year-old Kevin Harvick was tapped to run in replacement of Dale Earnhardt the week after the legend died in the 2001 Daytona 500, he remembers who visited his trailer before the race.
Among them were Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Dale Jarrett.
A few months later, when Harvick spun Bobby Hamilton out of contention for the 2001 Martinsville win, Harvick remembers how “that little spat” had “turned us into great friends.”
He remembers Rusty Wallace being a mentor to him. He remembers a similarly fiery Tony Stewart being a friend and confidant and someone he would “compare notes with” when he’d “get in trouble.”
That’s all to say this: Harvick remembers the fellow drivers who mentored him — and as he readies for retirement at the end of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, being a mentor is a big part of how Harvick wants to be remembered, too.
“Really it’s just trying to set an example,” Harvick told reporters Thursday. “Because the generation before me, those guys all communicated and helped each other and knew each other, and you know I think it’s important for our group of drivers. We’ve kind of gotten away from that. ... But we’ve worked hard on that over the last year and a half.”
You can’t describe Harvick’s legacy as a NASCAR driver without acknowledging his greatness. The 47-year-old Stewart-Haas Racing driver is ninth all time in Cup Series victories with 60, and was the Cup Series champion in 2014.
It’s also impossible to disentangle his legacy with his ferocity — challenging more veteran drivers (and even the most popular driver at the peak of his powers) as a young guy, and demanding more from NASCAR as a sanctioning body later in his career.
But what often goes under the radar is his mentorship.
“I try to keep it as private as possible because I don’t want them to think that I’m doing stuff like that so I can talk to you guys about it,” Harvick said.
He added, “I have a real interest in trying to share the things that I’ve been able to experience and make mistakes with. And there are so few guys who drive these cars, that you can really have more conversations with them and just reach out. Some of them you reach out to and you don’t really hear much from them. And some of them you reach out to and they wind up at dinner with you, or at your house having dinner.
“Whatever it is, they need to know that you’re there.”
Harvick said he had contemplated retiring for the “last five years” and that “all signs professionally pointed to 2023 and doing it the right way,” honoring the sport and its fans and those who work on his team and the sponsors.
In the past five years, Harvick has increased his mentoring. Harvick’s teammate, Chase Briscoe, who signed with SHR in 2020, tweeted his appreciation for Harvick after Harvick’s retirement announcement: “He is constantly raising the bar and the standard and teaching me about leadership along the way. Best teammate you could have.”
Harvick also said that speaking out on the safety issues with the Next Gen car has brought together the young and old in NASCAR’s top circuit more so than in other recent years, which he considers encouraging. (The car came under intense scrutiny this past summer after two drivers sustained concussions because of what some drivers considered a design issue with the car. One of those drivers, Kurt Busch, retired in part because he never 100% recovered from the brain injury he sustained in July.)
“Really the safety stuff has brought all of this into play as far as working on getting closer to understanding who all the competitors are and the drivers,” he said. “The safety stuff has really brought all that a little closer to home.”
It’s also clear Harvick isn’t done being a mentor once the 2023 season is done: The driver was part of a group that acquired the CARS Tour to elevate the profile of short-track racing and certain talented short-track racers across the country. He told reporters Thursday that he might one day be interested in being on the management side of a race team. And he also has a 10-year-old son, Keelan, who appears to be a high-level driver like his father.
Being a mentor, in other words, is about as important to Harvick as being a successful driver.
And those two things anchor his legacy.
“Being a fierce competitor but also being able to have the respect of the competitors around you,” Harvick said when asked what he wants his legacy to be. “Understanding that you would be there to compete, but could also navigate things well off the racetrack.”
He then laughed: “I wasn’t always able to do that. ... But I think that, to me, is as important as anything.”
Other NASCAR news
— 23XI Racing announced on Tuesday morning that it will field a third car for the Daytona 500, and driving it will be Travis Pastrana. He’ll drive the No. 67. This will be Pastrana’s inaugural entry in the NASCAR Cup Series. The 20-plus year racing veteran made a name for himself in supercross, motocross and rally racing, and he’s also amassed 11 gold medals in myriad events at the X Games.
— Harvick will join SRX (Superstar Racing Experience) for the season opener at Stafford Speedway on July 13th and Berline Raceway on August 3rd, the series announced on Thursday. SRX, co-founded by Tony Stewart, will run a six-race summer schedule on Thursday nights on ESPN. Per an ESPN report, other drivers are expected to announce plans to run on the short-track series. Chase Elliot and Ryan Blaney were among those who ran in SRX’s 2022 season.
