By Bob Pockrass - Sporting News
Date: Feb. 3, 2014
Some people avoid hiring friends or family. They view it as having the potential for ruining a friendship.
Tony Stewart is not that way. He has friends working for him, the people that he trusts the most.
He added a new employee and trusted friend for 2014. His name? Kevin Harvick, who left Richard Childress Racing after last season and now will work for his good buddy Stewart.
While no one questions the talent of Harvick, his fiery demeanor on the track has gotten him into hot water at times with his team and teammates. Just last year, he ripped Ty and Austin Dillon, the grandsons of team owner Richard Childress. And Harvick is known to challenge team leadership if he doesn’t believe they are going in the right direction.
Stewart? Just last year he called out his own driver, the legendary Steve Kinser, after Kinser wrecked him in a sprint-car race, using profanity toward Kinser after climbing out of his car.
So how are these two very passionate, competitive drivers going to work together? They seem to make a pretty good team — Stewart won several Nationwide races driving for Kevin Harvick Inc., and Stewart has hired friends as drivers since starting a World of Outlaws team for friend Danny Lasoski in 2001.
“There’s times it makes it more comfortable and there’s times it makes it more of a challenge,” Stewart said about having friends as his drivers. “But consistently, we’ve had to do that. It’s not something new this year. Just the people are new.
“If anything, it makes it easier because Kevin and I have had that relationship in the past. We have worked together as a driver-owner, just the roles were reversed. We know how to deal with each other.”
The way to deal with each other is to prove that they both are committing to winning races and championships. Stewart demonstrated that to Harvick in comments he made to him last year during a subpar season by Stewart-Haas Racing standards.
“The best conversation I had all year was when I sat in that bus and he said, ‘I promise you, you are my motivation to make sure that we get this race team situated and back competitive — I want to win this championship as the owner for you driving this car,’” Harvick said.
Harvick and Stewart did not talk about Harvick racing for SHR when they were working on a deal back in October 2012. It was Harvick’s business manager and SHR executives who hammered out the deal. Working for his friend wasn't a concern for Harvick.
“It’s not the first time that we’ve worked together from this relationship,” Harvick said. “Obviously the roles are reversed.
“When you get into a situation like this with myself and Tony, when the other tells you something, it’s not because he’s trying to hurt you in any way, he’s trying to help you and he’s trying to make you better.”
And what if Harvick has a blowup? Well, Harvick said he doesn’t need Stewart to straighten him out.
“From a competition standpoint, you want to race and you want to do the right things,” Harvick said. “I’ve been around this thing long enough to where you know when you’ve said something, done something, made a mistake on the track or need to do something better.
“For the most part, you know it’s pretty obvious what you need to do.”
For Stewart, he already has lived through the pain of having to fire a friend. Ryan Newman is Stewart's friend, and Stewart was the one who had to tell him that he would not be retained after last season.
“There’s times when you have to be the boss and there are times when you’re their friend,” Stewart said. “I’ve had race teams since 2001, and my very first race team was built because of a friend of mine and I had to be his boss and be his friend at the same time.
“Thirteen years later, I think we’ve got the formula down pretty well.”
The formula is to try to give the drivers the best opportunity to win. Harvick sees that, with SHR having won the Cup championship in 2011 with Stewart and a technical alliance with Hendrick Motorsports, which has dominated the sport over the last decade.
Harvick has spent time at the shop, learning the names of the crewmen working on his car. Those crewmen have also had to learn the names of each other, as Harvick has an entirely new team at SHR.
“For me, (it’s a) change in scenery and all the new people and the enthusiasm for the most part,” Harvick said. “They brought in a lot of new people from the outside and to see that mixed with the current staff at SHR, … the enthusiasm is contagious around the shop.”
Even though he had a crew last year that pretty much ignored all the drama of his last season at RCR, Harvick said it wasn’t an easy situation with everyone knowing he would be leaving at the end of the year. He ended up with a shot at the title in the final race and wound up third in the standings for the third time in four years.
“Last year was a grind, just very tense, just an awkward position to be in from a driver standpoint,” Harvick said. “Everybody knew everybody was going in a different direction the year after but you had to keep the focus on the racing and not on the business side and the hurt feelings and all the things, all the emotions that came with the position that we were in.”
It’s pretty obvious why Harvick went to SHR. Third in points wasn’t good enough at RCR. It won’t be good enough at SHR, either. So that’s probably why it was a good sign for Harvick that his car was fastest in the December test session where teams were working on various aero packages for NASCAR.
“Part of the reason why I came to this team was to figure out how to win a championship,” Harvick said. “Tony has done that, (teammate) Kurt (Busch) has done that, as an organization Stewart-Haas Racing has done that. … The cars have been really fast.
“I told them on Lap 2 at Charlotte, ‘Thank you guys very much. You have just confirmed every reason why I came here to drive this car.’”
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