No. 29 Realtree/Bad Boy Buggies Chevrolet
IRWIN Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway
Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
• Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Realtree/Bad Boy Buggies Chevrolet team will race under the lights at Bristol Motor Speedway in Saturday’s IRWIN Tools Night Race.
• Harvick will be available to members of the media in the Bristol Motor Speedway (BMS) infield media center at 11:15 a.m. on Friday. Additionally, he will be available to media members in the BMS media center at 4 p.m. on Wednesday prior to that night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race.
• The No. 29 team will race chassis No. 346 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable this weekend at Bristol. The No. 29 team started 14th and finished 19th in this car at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race in May.
• In 21 starts at Bristol, Harvick has earned one win (2005), nine top-five and 12 top-10 finishes. His average starting position is 18.3 and his average finishing position is 12.0. Harvick has completed 97.8 percent (10,291 of 10,513) of the total laps run at Bristol since 2001. He’s also led a total of 427 laps at the short track. Last race
• Harvick holds several notable loop data statistics at Bristol, including: first in closers; third in green-flag passes (603); fifth in drivers fastest late in a run; fifth in green-flag speed; sixth in speed in traffic; sixth in drivers fastest early in a run; sixth in average running position (13.384); seventh in driver rating (91.8); ninth in fastest laps run (232); ninth in laps run in the top 15 (3,975).
• Harvick will start the race week at Bristol by competing in the Kevin Harvick Inc. No. 2 Hunt Brothers Pizza Chevrolet Silverado on Wednesday night in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) race. Harvick has competed in four NCWTS races this year and earned back-to-back wins in the last two races at Pocono Raceway and Michigan International Speedway. SPEED and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will have live coverage of the race starting at 8 p.m. ET.
• This week in Budweiser Racing History: Budweiser drivers have taken home the checkered flag in Bristol Motor Speedway’s second race of the season on two occasions. In 1986, Darrell Waltrip went to Victory Lane at the short track after leading 179 laps and winning by an 8.55-second margin in the Busch 500. Dale Earnhardt Jr. became the second Budweiser driver to go to Victory Lane at Bristol when he scored a win in the 2004 Sharpie 500. That night he led 295 laps and took the checkered flag 4.390 seconds ahead of the nearest competition.
• 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 Bristol:
What does it take to be successful at Bristol at night?
“We haven’t really figured that out yet since the new banking and the new track design was put into place. We haven’t run great. We’ve run ok, but we haven’t got the notebook that says you need to do this. So we’re still searching a little bit there.”
What is it like to race at Bristol under the lights?
“It is a lot different than it used to be. Obviously that race for years has been the hardest ticket in our sport to get. I don’t necessarily know that is the way it still is. It seems like the Saturday night race there always brings out something exciting.”
When do you need to ramp up that championship momentum?
“It seems like in the past, we’ve always ramped it up to get in the Chase. It doesn’t really matter. Once you are in, you have to ramp it up when you get to Chicago and that’s where the next step starts, so you have to take it one week at a time. You have to have things going your way when Chicago starts. If you have something go wrong, you have to figure out to make it right and you have to get stuff going. I’d say the guys that are up in the top-10, their attitudes will change. Our attitudes will change a lot and it won’t be so relaxing here in a few weeks.”