Author: Tom Jensen
Date: April 27, 2015
If race-winner Kurt Busch was the star of the show Sunday at Richmond International Raceway -- and he was -- his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kevin Harvick continues to be the story of the year.
Harvick won his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship in 2014, which was also his first season with SHR. This year, he's picked up right where he left off, with two victories in the first nine races of the season, tying him with Jimmie Johnson for the series lead. More impressively, perhaps, Harvick's runner-up performance at RIR marked his seventh top-two finish of the season and his 10th in 12 races dating back to Texas last fall.
How dominant has Harvick been this season? After nine races, Harvick leads Joey Logano by 33 points and Martin Truex Jr. by 42. No other drivers are within one full race of Harvick in terms of points. He, crew chief Rodney Childers and the team have been that good so far.
"Well, just really fortunate to have a team that consists of a bunch of guys that do their jobs week in and week out," said Harvick. "I think we're a better team than we were last year, just for the fact that those guys are just such a tight knit group of people. I tell people all the time it's very special to be a part of a team that knows what to do with each other without even having to say anything, and you see the teamwork and the camaraderie between the group of guys and everybody enjoys working together and being around each other, and that's really what makes it go around."
Harvick credited Childers with understanding what the driver needs in his car and giving it to him.
"Rodney is an animal when it comes to the details, and he can drive it, he can build it, he can engineer it, and that is what a good crew chief really can do nowadays," said Harvick.
[RICHMOND, VA - APRIL 26: Kurt Busch, driver of the #41 Haas Automation Chevrolet, celebrates in Victory Lane with the trophy after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway on April 26, 2015 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk/NASCAR via Getty Images)]
From timeout to title contender, Kurt Busch turns his season around
A measure of how good Harvick is right now is that he admitted to being frustrated that a bad set of tires in the middle of the race meant he had to fight back to finish second when he had a car that was good enough to win for most of the race.
"I felt like we had a car that was capable of winning the race and just so far behind with one set of tires there, went all the way to the middle of the pack, and luckily had a good enough car to get it back to where it needed to be," said Harvick. "Really happy with the way things went, and just ran out of time at the end."
To view this article as it appears on FOXSports.com, click here.