April 2, 2019 | By Lee Spencer

NASCAR: Good isn't good enough for Kevin Harvick

Kevin Harvick wasn’t so much at a loss for words than at a loss for solutions at Texas Motor Speedway.

The 2014 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup champion had exhausted his bag of tricks behind the wheel of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford on Sunday. 

First, he had a wicked vibration. Then he couldn’t drive the car on the restarts. In the final stage, he felt like he was riding a pogo stick.

No, Harvick wasn’t happy. That he gutted out an eighth-place finish, his sixth top 10 of the season, is simply a testament to his talent and determination. 

But he wasn’t close to being the fastest car on the race track. Harvick’s odds improved significantly after Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch were eliminated from contention—particularly since the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 went green for the final 74 laps.

Yet, while his three SHR teammates led laps at Texas, Harvick didn’t sniff the front of the field—and hasn’t since Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 3.

After the race, Harvick described the team’s performance as an unmitigated disaster.

“Our car drove terrible, and that pretty much sums it up,” Harvick said. “We’re further off than we were last week. The tires suck every week.  

“We haven’t been close to a race-winning car in a race yet.” 

Had it not been for NASCAR’s new policy of requiring the top 10 finishers to stop by the media bullpen, Harvick would not have bothered commenting at all. But as reporters tried to get Harvick to elaborate on the reasons for the lackluster performance of his car, Harvick concluded the interview with “I just drive.”

Two-thirds of the field would have been satisfied with a top-10 finish on Sunday. Harvick, however, expects more. He’s not one to accept mediocrity. At 43, he can’t afford to. Harvick wasted too many years with Richard Childress Racing—an organization that hasn’t been capable of besting the likes of Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing on more than an occasional basis since the 1990s. 

While fellow Californian Jimmie Johnson was collecting championships, Harvick had to be asking himself what he had to do to stop finishing third in the standings. Rather than stay the course—and continue with the same results—Harvick moved on to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014. The No. 4 team was custom-designed for Kevin Harvick. 

And voila! Harvick won the championship.

The following year, Harvick posted his best-career qualifying and finish averages. He also led a career-high 2,294 laps but lost the championship to Kyle Busch after finishing second at Homestead-Miami Speedway. In the five years since moving to SHR, 2016 is the only season Harvick didn’t advance to the Championship 4 round of the Playoffs. He’s finished third the last two years. But since NASCAR changed the title format, the title isn’t necessarily reflective of a team’s entire body of work during 36 races. The champion is determined by who fares best in the season finale.

Harvick’s eight wins and 29 top 10s in 2018 were the most he had ever scored in a season. His 23 top fives matched his mark set in 2015. Yet he finished third in the Cup standings for the sixth time in 18 years.

Now, he’s third in the standings again. Forget the wreck at Daytona, and Harvick’s average finish is 5.83. He scored consecutive fourth-place finishes at Atlanta and Las Vegas, won the pole at the latter then led a race-high 88 laps, only to lose to Logano. His only two stage wins in 2019 came in those two races.

After seven races, Harvick’s average qualifying effort and average finish equal his career best. But that win column remains empty. JGR and Team Penske have stolen all the headlines this year. Currently, Harvick isn’t convinced he can compete with those organizations.

When asked last Friday whether a different team could win at Texas, Harvick wasn’t sure.

“Right now, we have no clue with the way that the rules are right now,” Harvick said. “Friday is so drastically opposite of what you need on Saturday and Sunday that you don’t really learn anything about your car.  

“I think for us we’ve had fourth, fifth-place cars at a lot of these styles of race tracks.”

The Cup Series doesn’t return to an intermediate track until May 11 at Kansas. That offers the Rodney Childers-led team more than a month to address concerns. But with Harvick in the twilight of his career, there are only so many opportunities to add to his legacy. He doesn’t have time to spin his wheels.