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Kevin Harvick gave a peek into the pre-race routines of NASCAR drivers, and the picture is anything but predictable. The insight came during his appearance on The Athletic’s “12 Questions” series by Jeff Gluck, published on September 18, 2019. Harvick, a former Cup Series champion and long-time Stewart-Haas Racing driver, spoke openly about the range of subjects drivers discuss in the moments before they climb into their cars.
According to Kevin Harvick, there’s no set script. The conversations vary depending on who’s around and what’s going on that day. It could be something technical like car performance, or something completely off-topic like a funny social media post or a story from the week.
“It depends on the person. Some weeks it’s about your race car and what was happening in practice with your teammates and some weeks you’re sitting up there with your kids and you’re talking about something that happened during the week... It’s a very wide range of conversation that tends to get started and you never know what direction it could go in,” Harvick said.
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In the same interview, he admitted he’s more likely to stop and interact with kids than adults, simply because he knows how impactful those moments can be. Harvick also gave a peek into the pre-race eating habits.
Asked if there was a food he’d advise against before a race, Kevin Harvick didn’t hesitate in saying Mexican food. Although he professed his love for the cuisine, he mentioned that the potential for stomach cramps before a race makes it a bad idea.
Kevin Harvick reacts to a dangerous pit road moment involving Nemechek at Bristol
Kevin Harvick weighed in on a near-miss involving John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 42 Toyota and Daniel Suarez’s No. 99 crew in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. The incident occurred during a caution triggered by a spin between Shane Van Gisbergen and Cody Ware. As Nemechek entered pit road for fresh tires, his team failed to properly secure the left-rear wheel.
As Nemechek drove out, the wheel detached and shot down pit road. The rolling tire nearly hit a crew member from Suarez’s team before slamming into the rear of his Chevrolet. The moment, caught on video, was a close call that could’ve ended much worse.
On his Happy Hour podcast, Kevin Harvick commented on the situation and said:
“This could've been a lot worse. You’ll see the lug nut fly off the car right there. Rolling down the pit boxes right there as he continued to drive off, the wheel and tire came off the car to outrun his car and took a beline straight towards 99 of Daniel Suarez but that tire changer running around the car right there look how close that is.” [16:47 onwards]
The introduction of the Next Gen car brought in a single center-locking lug nut, designed to speed up pit stops. However, the change also means that one point of failure could lead to incidents like this. Nemechek’s team avoided a full penalty since the incident was within pit road boundaries, but the driver was moved to the rear of the field.
