46-year-old NASCAR veteran Kevin Harvick has been having a dismal time in the 2022 Cup Series season. With 17 races already underway, the Bakersfield, California native sits in 12th place on the drivers' standings table with a play-offs rank of 17.
The 2014 Cup Series champion's last outing at the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway was yet another indication as to why Harvick hasn't had a win this year, sealing his spot in the eventual play-offs. Harvick has been critical of his pit crew in two out of the last three races, where he felt the #4 Ford Mustang driver was let down on pit road.
Harvick was running fourth at Sonoma Raceway last weekend when a poor pit stop that lasted over 20 seconds meant he eventually rejoined in seventh place. Rodney Childers, the crew chief for the #4 team at Stewart-Haas Racing, elaborated on how they need to address their issues and said:
“We need to win a race. We kind of feel like if you don’t win a race, you might not get in (the playoffs). You can’t really give up a lot of spots on pit road and still try to win races.”
Childers also addressed the qualifying woes the team has had throughout the season so far, which has put a damper on their results on Sunday. Starting a race outside the top-20 on regular occasions means fighting through the field to even get in contention for a good result.
The Mooresville, North Carolina native also highlighted another peril of a bad qualifying, which is dirty air. Stewart-Haas Racing as a team has suffered from dirty air over the season, as Childers explained, saying:
“All of our teams kind of got worse. We just couldn’t race because they were so bad in traffic, and then we’ve kind of backed up from there and went back to some things that were working at the beginning of the year, and we’ve kind of been a little bit better again.”
Kevin Harvick to run new Busch Light Apple livery at Nashville Superspeedway this weekend
NASCAR Veteran Kevin Harvick's #4 Ford Mustang will be seen in a new avatar in this weekend's Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway. The new livery comes courtesy of Harvick's primary sponsor Busch Light. The Anheuser-Busch brand is promoting a new apple flavor of the widely-loved Busch Light beer.
The St. Louis, Missouri brewery's brand Busch Light has been a long-time sponsor of Kevin Harvick's career. Watch out for the #4 Ford Mustang on track this weekend as Stewart-Haas Racing try and make amends for their previous races.