CUP: Harvick Man To Beat On Sunday?

Sprint Cup

CUP: Harvick Man To Beat On Sunday?

Kevin Harvick has shown beyond a doubt that if you underestimate his prowess at Daytona International Speedway, you do so at your own peril...

Tom Jensen | Posted February 12, 2009 Daytona Beach, FL

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Kevin Harvick’s 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season has gotten off to a strong start with a Bud Shootout victory and a runner-up finish in the Daytona 500. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

If he has proven nothing else in his NASCAR career, Kevin Harvick has shown beyond a doubt that if you underestimate his prowess at Daytona International Speedway, you do so at your own peril.

Harvick, who is scheduled to appear live on SPEED’s NASCAR RaceDay, literally has come out of nowhere on the last lap at the 2.5-mile tri-oval twice in the last two years to stunning upset victories. The first came in the 2007 Daytona 500, when he blew by Mark Martin to win by a scant 0.020 seconds at the line.

The Bakersfield, Calif., native did it again last Saturday night in the Budweiser Shootout. After starting 27th in the 28-car Shootout field and surviving an early race crash, Harvick put on another amazing display of late-race speed, barely clearing Jamie McMurray on the last lap, just an instant before a yellow flag came out to freeze the field, giving Harvick the victory.

Based on those two performances — and the fact that the Richard Childress Racing Chevrolets are almost always especially potent at restrictor-plate tracks, Harvick enters Sunday’s Daytona 500 as a legitimate threat to win, if not the outright favorite. Pay no attention to the woeful qualifying time he posted in the Daytona 500 — 49th of 56 cars taking time — which was the result of a burned up rear-end gear, not lack of speed. Yes, Harvick will start the 500 32nd, but as he proved last week, he can get to the front quickly.

Still, the high of winning the Shootout and the low of qualifying illustrate what Harvick said is one of the keys to success at Daytona: Staying on balance throughout two long weeks of practice and racing.

“You know this is your biggest race, your biggest event,” said Harvick. “The hardest part about it is keeping yourself kind of even keeled across the board as you go through the week. You have a high on Shootout night; you never know how that is going to go. Then you have qualifying and we had a low and you don’t know how that is going to affect everything. So you have to keep a balance until you get to Sunday and really understand what goes with the week.”

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Tom Jensen

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