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Former NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick retired from stock car racing at the end of the 2023 season. However, the other successful NASCAR drivers who started in the late 90s or early 2000s retired in the late 2010s. Back in 2018, Harvick was questioned about how he felt about his peers retiring as he shared his thoughts on his retirement.
Kevin Harvick made his Cup Series debut in 2001 and raced in 826 races over 23 years. The American started his career with Richard Childress Racing and made a switch to Stewart Haas Racing in 2024 where he ended his NASCAR career.
Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, and Tony Stewart, who started racing in NASCAR about the same time as Harvick, retired before the 2017 season, whereas Dale Earnhardt Jr and Matt Kenseth retired at the end of the 2017 season. When asked how he felt about his peers retiring, Harvick said, (via Racer)
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“For me, it’s different. Obviously, one of them is my boss. I came to Stewart-Haas Racing to race with Tony Stewart. I didn’t think he’d ever retire, and then he goes and retires on me in year three. That actually took me a little while to get over.”
“Then you look at Matt and Jeff and some of these other guys, Carl Edwards, that have retired, and I think they all have different reasons,” he added.
Harvick, who was 42 years old at the time of the interview, then shut down the possibility of a retirement from NASCAR in 2018. The California-born won his first and only Cup Series championship a few years before the interview and wasn't ready to step down from the sport as he said,
“People ask me this all the time: “When are you going to retire?” And I’ll say, 'I have no idea, because I’m having the time of my life right now, and maybe I’m a late bloomer.' I love what I do, and I love my job.”
After retiring, Kevin Harvick joined FOX’s broadcast team for NASCAR, where he’s currently employed. The 2014 Cup Series championship did a couple of gigs with FOX in the 2010s, which led to the opportunity to join the NASCAR broadcast booth.
Kevin Harvick detailed how the “thrill of competing” provided motivation for the second championship
As Kevin Harvick continued his NASCAR career in pursuit of his second Cup Series championship, he came out and detailed (in 2018) how the motivation of beating the guys around him to win the Daytona 500 or the championship kept him in the racing seat. He said,
“Whether it’s two Daytona 500s or two championships, I’ll take either one this year. That would be fine with me. That’s what we’re here for. I mean, we’re here to race for championships, and in the end, that thrill of competing and beating the guy next to you is really the drive of what makes me keep showing back up at the race track.”
Kevin Harvick won his only championship in 2014 and finished inside the Top 3 in two of the following three years to follow. The motivation to continue racing with Stewart-Haas Racing was high back then.
