Kevin's Diaries |
Hello! I wanted to take a few minutes and catch up with everyone. DeLana and
I just returned from Texas yesterday for what seemed like a week. I really
enjoy going to Texas Motor Speedway, because as they say, ‘everything is
bigger in Texas’ and that’s pretty much true.
We arrived early Wednesday afternoon for an appearance at RoadLoans.com
headquarters. As most of you know, RoadLoans.com is one of my sponsors in the
Nationwide Series. It was pretty neat to see the building and all their
employees decked out in No. 33 Kevin Harvick racing gear. DeLana, Cale Gale
and I signed autographs and took pictures with the employees before heading
over to the track
Thursday is dedicated to the Nationwide Series and Friday is solely devoted
to the Sprint Cup cars. On Thursday, Mother Nature played havoc with the
weather causing NASCAR to cancel qualifying. I wasn’t complaining since the
field lined up by 2008 Owner Points, which we were leading at the time.
That evening after the rain moved through the area I had the opportunity to
participate in the annual Fandango Celebration inside the track. Eddie
Gossage, the track president and his staff do an outstanding job putting on a
great show for the season tickets holders. Jeff Gordon, Elliot Sadler and I
were guests at the event which was hosted by Kyle Petty. We talked about
everything from Operation Wax Smoke to my hunting trip in Utah. The event was
great and I want to thank Eddie and all the fans that came out to watch. The
funniest part of the night was watching Elliot and Jeff play the video game
Rock Band.
On Saturday, we had the final two practice sessions for the NEXTEL Cup cars
before Sunday’s race. We were pretty happy with the car in practice and felt
like we had a excellent shot at a good finish on Sunday.
That afternoon, the Nationwide Series took to the track for the running of
the O’Reilly’s 300. Being on the pole I jumped out to an early lead.
Unfortunately after leading the first 55 laps, we broke an axle during the
green-flag pit stops. After a lengthy stint in the garage we returned to the
track to try and salvage a good finish. We ran some of the fastest lap times
throughout the race and even turned the fastest lap of the race but we came
home in the 34th position. As disappointing as the mechanical failure was, I
couldn’t be prouder of the No. 33 team. We are going to get a win soon, I can
feel it.
Going into Sunday I was looking to rebound from my misfortune the day before.
Once the green flag dropped my car became very hard to handle. The entire
Shell team did a great job working to make the car better throughout the
race. I was able to finish 11th and maintain the second position in the point
standings.
Hopefully this weekend at Phoenix we can continue to climb the up point
standings in both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series.
Talk to you guys later!
~Kevin Harvick |
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