Kevin Harvick is the NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Q: Jeff Gordon will be 40 next year, so does he realize the wins will be tougher to get?

A: I remind him of that all the time. Jeff thinks about it, sure. He’s a smart athlete. That doesn’t mean he can’t win. Maybe he can’t win as much as he was used to. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a championship in him. He has to go about it differently. He’s got to be a little bit more methodical making sure he gets everything he can from his car and his crew every week.

Jeff has really stepped up to be a good team leader. I hear him on the radio trying to cheer those guys on and I hear him on the radio trying to fire them up whether he wants to go punch somebody else or whatever. He defends his team with the media and things like that and when something goes wrong, he stands up and takes the responsibility, even though some days it’s really not his responsibility. He sees that he can lead that team to a championship but he’s not going to do it outdriving Kyle.

Q: Are you surprised Jeff has gone so long without winning?

A: I’m surprised because they ran so good. I’m more surprised at the mistakes that have cost them the wins. This new double-file restart really makes you hustle up. I’ve seen Jeff get in the middle of stuff that I really didn’t expect him to get in the middle of. Missing pit road at Darlington or kind of messing up on a restart. That might be him trying to carry a little bit too much of everything on his back. So as good as they’ve run, I am surprised they haven’t won because they have been fast enough to win.

Q: Is Kevin Harvick more ready to win a championship?

A: Kevin has matured a lot. Kevin is another guy that could always drive a race car. One of the things that helped Kevin mature was owning his own cars. … He’s definitely matured. I don’t want to say I’m surprised, when you look at the run that Jimmie’s had, that Kevin hasn’t won a championship yet. But if not this year, that is a guy that will be in the championship battle for a good bit. A lot of that maturity comes from his owning his own stuff.

Q: He has a bigger voice in the garage?

A: No different than Tony Stewart. As you go through that, you start to understand a little bit more about everybody else’s world. Like me, I’m a hell of a lot nicer to you guys [in the media] than I used to be because I understand what it’s like to be over there now and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. Why was I such an ass when I was a crew chief?’ I didn’t really understand the whole picture. The longer you’re in the sport, the more of the picture you understand, the better you become. That immaturity goes out when they start to understand there’s a lot more to this than they thought it was.

Q: As an owner, what is your take on Brad Keselowski last weekend?

A: As an owner, I would try to be a friend. As an owner, I would say, ‘Don’t do it again. It’s not doing us any good.’ I think Brad Keselowski is extremely talented, I really do. But I think that he is making things difficult on himself because he is being a little bit inflexible the way he races people. The guy has got to learn. People will respect him for his talent but to have that attitude like, ‘I’m never going to back off,’ in the end that is never going to work for you if you want to win championships.

That kid is good. I’ve been a supporter of his. I don’t think that what he did on the PA system the other night [at Bristol] was right or classy or helped his brand at all. … He is a young man, new into this sport, and I think he has got enough talent that he deserves the time that Roger Penske or maybe some other drivers will spend with him and say, ‘Look, kid, you probably have got to be a little more flexible with your driving. You didn’t like the slide-job that Kyle [Busch] put on you, but Kyle did race you clean for 20 laps before that and you could have easily turned the car left and then raced him down in the corner and shoved him up and took the win back.’ Instead, he wanted to prove a point, ‘I’m not backing off.’ He didn’t back off, and he ended up losing the race because of it, because Kyle got mad and spun him.

This is a conversation I had with Jeff Gordon years ago because at that time there was no sense in screwing with [Dale] Earnhardt. Race him clean and don’t make him mad, because in the end, whether you’re right or wrong, you’re going to come out on the short end. Brad Keselowski has got a lot of wins and championships in his future, but he’s got to be a little bit more flexible with his driving. And doing stuff like he did on the PA, it made people laugh for a few minutes, but in the end, it’s not going to help people think that he’s a good guy. It just wasn’t a classy thing to do.

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Q: How will that play out with other drivers?

A: He’s still got time to fix his relationship with other drivers. He said that about Kyle and whatever, but Kyle Busch is a pretty damn good race driver. And if you’re going to make fun of him, you better be able to at least do what he can do. Brad said that and then Kyle lapped him. That, to me, I would find that pretty embarrassing. I would be riding out there, ‘He’s an ass but I just went a lap down.’ Duh.

People know that Brad is young, they do respect his talent and other drivers [will respect him] if he goes back and calms down a little bit and says, ‘Yeah, I was probably over the edge’ like we all have had to do. I wish I could stand here and take a lot of things back that I said. All you can do is make sure that you don’t say them again. That kid can easily make it on his talent. He’s got to be a little bit more aware of where he’s at in the sport right now.

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