Author: Zack Albert
Date: Oct. 1, 2015
If there's any consolation for Kevin Harvick to be sitting just one rung up from the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup basement, it's that he's been there before and still managed to extricate himself -- all the way to his first premier-series title last year.
The defending champion's task is no less difficult this year, but it's an almost all-or-nothing scenario, a circumstance where Harvick seems to thrive.
"Obviously, for me personally, I like these types of situations," Harvick said in a Thursday morning teleconference as he made media rounds in New York. "I think they're different and fun and it's all in the approach and how you react to them. So I think as a team, we'll do everything in our … from a preparation standpoint the same. But I think if you can get the result and get that sensation of winning and all the things that come with the type of situation that we're in, it's even more fun."
That situation comes to a head this weekend at Dover International Speedway, site of Sunday's weekend's AAA 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN/Live Extra, MRN, SiriusXM). Harvick enters the elimination event -- the finale to the Chase's opening three-race Challenger Round -- staring down a 23-point deficit from the 12th-place cutoff point for advancement. Barring mathematical dives from a significant number of the remaining 15 drivers in the Chase field, a victory Sunday and the accompanying automatic berth seem to be Harvick's best route to the next round.
Harvick staved off elimination in 2014, rising from last place among the eight title-eligible drivers remaining by winning the penultimate race of the season at Phoenix International Raceway to keep his title march rolling. Though he has recent history to rely on, his sense of perspective in dealing with pressurized situations goes back much further, all the way to his debut in NASCAR's major leagues.
"I think as you look at the things that we have been through as a team over the past couple years, we have been in a lot of pretty intense situations, but for me personally, I think that these things are kind of a, they're kind of a walk in the park compared to the Earnhardt situations of taking over his car and having to deal with that and all the things that we dealt with back in 2001," Harvick said in a nod to his inheritance of Dale Earnhardt's ride after his death in a crash at Daytona International Speedway.
"It kind of makes these scenarios a little bit easier to deal with because you've dealt with things that are on a much bigger scale than the current things of just performing on the race track."
As for the here and now, Harvick finds himself in his precarious plight after successive weeks of trouble. A tire rub after midrace contact led to his subsequent crash, saddling him with a 42nd-place finish in the Chicagoland opener. That tumble in the standings was exacerbated by a fuel gamble gone wrong last weekend in New Hampshire, leaving him with a 21st-place result after leading 216 of the 300 laps.
Harvick said Thursday that he didn't see either of those situations as risks, nor has he played the blame game with crew chief Rodney Childers or any of his Stewart-Haas Racing team. For now, the focus remains on performance at Dover.
"It's a really, really tight knit bunch of guys and we're all going to support each other, because we're all going to make mistakes in different situations and I don't think we have necessarily made a mistake, but I think we have definitely had to react to some situations throughout the last couple years and I think it's made us stronger as we move forward and better from on a weekly basis as a team," Harvick said. "So, it's just part of what we do, and I think when you look at the performance of the race cars on the racetrack is really, it's absolutely unbelievable.
"I mean, I'm just lucky to drive the cars and to let certain situations affect something like that would be absolutely crazy on any of our parts."
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