No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet
Good Sam RV Insurance 500 at Pocono Raceway
Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
• After scoring a fifth-place finish at Pocono Raceway in June, Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team return to the 2.5-mile track, nicknamed the “Tricky Triangle,” this weekend for Sunday’s Good Sam RV Insurance 500.
• Harvick will be available to members of the media in the Pocono Raceway infield media center at 9:15 a.m. on Friday, August 5.
• Harvick will race chassis No. 318 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. The No. 29 team utilized this car to score an 11th-place finish at Kansas Speedway earlier this season. Harvick also raced this car to three top-10 finishes in 2010: third at Kansas Speedway (October 3), eighth at Charlotte Motor Speedway (October 16) and sixth at Texas Motor Speedway (November 7).
• In 21 starts at Pocono Raceway, Harvick has earned five top-five and eight top-10 finishes. His best finishing position at the 2.5-mile track is a fourth-place result, which he’s scored three times (August 2004 and June and August 2010). Harvick’s average starting position there is 20.2 and his average finishing position is 14.0. He’s led just five laps at Pocono, but has completed 95.6 percent (3,910 of 4,089) of the laps run in the races he’s competed in.
• Harvick holds a number of impressive loop data statistics at Pocono Raceway: first in green-flag passes (1,121); fifth in closers; fifth in quality passes (560); seventh in speed in traffic; ninth in drivers rating (92.0); 10th in average green-flag speed (158.636 mph); 10th in laps run in the top 15 (1,588 - 63.2 percent); 10th in average running position; and 10th in driver fastest late in a run.
• The No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet will be one of the show cars on display at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center as a number of NASCAR executives, team owners, drivers and personalities, including RCR team owner Richard Childress, visit the center on Thursday, August 4. The event marks NASCAR’s seventh visit to the historic medical center before it moves to a new facility in Bethesda, Md., in September. Drivers, team owners and NASCAR executives will visit with patients and their families on the wards.
• The DIRECTV Head2Head Knockout Challenge kicks off with Sunday’s race at Pocono Raceway and Harvick is paired up against Dave Blaney for the first round of the four-week fantasy racing game that ends with the August 27 race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Fans participating in the challenge can win an array of prizes and the drivers involved are competing to win money for their selected charities. Harvick has designated the Kevin Harvick Athletic Scholarship Fund at California State University, Bakersfield, as his charity of choice for the challenge. Fans must register to participate in the challenge by August 7 at www.directv.com/nascar.
• Kevin Harvick Inc. co-owner, Harvick, returns to the seat of the No. 2 Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Chevrolet Silverado for Saturday’s Good Sam RV Emergency Road Service 125 at Pocono Raceway. The race marks his third Camping World Truck Series (CWTS) event of the season. Harvick scored top-five finishes in each of his previous two CWTS starts this year: fourth at Martinsville Speedway (April 2) and fifth at Dover International Speedway (May 13). SPEED will air the live television broadcast at 1 p.m. ET. MRN Radio and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will provide the live radio broadcast.
• For the online version of the Budweiser Racing media guide, please visit http://www.budracingmedia.com.
• Follow along each weekend with Harvick and the team on Twitter. Check out @KevinHarvick for behind-the-scenes information straight from the driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet. Get live updates from the track each weekend from @Black29Car, the PR team for Harvick. Also, follow @RCRracing and @RCR29KHarvick for additional information about the Richard Childress Racing organization.
Kevin Harvick on racing at Pocono Raceway:
Looking ahead to Pocono, are there more passing zones there than most tracks you go to? “Well, the race track creates that with the bumps and the asphalt being wore out. It’s a fun race track to drive because you have options. With the race track being in the shape that it is, there’s a lot of opportunities to make a lot of mistakes with your car sliding, bouncing, the tires falling off, everything that happens. I think from a driver’s perspective, that’s a good thing because you have an opportunity to make your car handle better and have those options to pass people.”
We were just at Pocono a couple months ago. Will the track be the same or will it have changed at all? “You would think it’d be a little warmer, so obviously the cars should slide around a little bit more than what they did the last time, but it shouldn’t be a huge difference. Pocono is a unique race track in itself with all the bumps and the tires falling off more than a lot of the places we go to. It’ll be the same old Pocono, maybe just a little warmer.”
What was your take on shifting there? “It was a lot of work – six times a lap. I don’t know who thought of that rule, but they should put them in the car and let them shift with us. I liked it when we used to have the overdrive and you’d shift down the front straightaway and that was it. But, if they allow us to do it again, we’ll do it again.”