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MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES: GANDER RV DUEL 1 AT DAYTONA

February 14, 2019

Kevin Harvick

Daytona Beach, Florida

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by the winner of the first Gander RV Duel at Daytona, that is Kevin Harvick, driver of the No.4 Busch Beer Ford for Stewart‑Haas Racing.
We'll open up the floor to questions for Kevin.

Q. Tell the four leaf clover story.
KEVIN HARVICK: Keelan got set out of recess because him and his friends were roughhousing, knocking each other over, acting like clowns. They had to sit in the grass and watch everybody else have recess.
He came home with a four leaf clover and thought that was cool. He told me to put it in the car. It worked out well so far.

Q. The Mustangs have already been fast. Being out front like you were, pulling the train around, how much can you learn from that positioning that applies to Sunday?
KEVIN HARVICK: After last Sunday, I did the same thing last year on Clash Sunday, wanted to be aggressive, wanted to go out there and try to do things by yourself. You just can't do that.
The strategy tonight worked out well. We got onto pit road well, put gas in the car well. They were able to get us the lead. Our cars have been fast. We just didn't have the track position last Sunday. Got the track position tonight, towed the train around there.
When you look at second and third with Stenhouse and Menard back there, I felt like things were lined up pretty good for us towards the end of the race because I knew we had three fast Fords sitting up front. We have seen when we all work together, it's hard to beat the Fords, the Roush‑Yates engines, the thing that we have going at the superspeedways.

Q. Here is a simple one. What kind of race do you anticipate on Sunday?
KEVIN HARVICK: I don't think you're going to see a race like we've seen the last two races. It's just so much different when you get all the cars out there, you have the lines that have so much more momentum than what they've had, especially when you start putting stage points out there and things in the middle of the race.
I think it's going to be very similar to what we had last year. I haven't watched last year's race. We wrecked early last year running third or fourth. So whatever that looked like, it should look very similar.

Q. Do you potentially see a lot of big ones?
KEVIN HARVICK: It always happens. You get to Sunday and the hype and anticipation and the excitement and enthusiasm and stage points, all the things that come with the Daytona 500. When you flip the switch on Sunday, it's not like flipping the switch anywhere else. When you come to this green flag, the hair stands up on your arms because you see the crowd. You know what's on the line.
You've been down here for two weeks and you're finally at the point of getting to do what you've been here to do, and that's race for the Daytona 500, Harley J. Earl Trophy and a Daytona 500 win.
It's a different feeling than anything you do for two weeks when you drop the green on Sunday.

Q. Could you get a feel for your car tonight as far as how much more you had speed‑wise, handling, anything? You led most of the last part of that race.
KEVIN HARVICK: I felt like our cars have been driving good in practice. I felt like my car drove good tonight when we were following Paul and those guys early in the race. I haven't had any signs throughout practice, throughout the Clash or throughout the race tonight that pointed towards anything that the car was going to handle bad.
With the way the cars are up a little bit more in the back, more downforce this year, they all should handle better than what we have in the past.
But you never know. When it gets hot on Sunday, you're in the middle of the day, this whole week usually cruises along, then you roll in on Sunday and you put all those cars together for the first time, the runs are faster, things are happening faster, the track is slicker after you've been through it for a couple weeks of racing, you're in the middle of the day.
There's nothing that can compare to racing on Sunday with everybody out there. It's just drastically different than everything that you do all week.

Q. How concerned were you it was going to be a team‑up situation there behind you? What were you prepared to do to stave off the guys?
KEVIN HARVICK: They were going to have to have a pretty big head of steam. They were going to fill those holes pretty quick. Unless they had a huge head of steam, they weren't going to clear me without a whole line of cars, unless the whole line was going to bail on me, which is highly possible.
But I doubt they would have done that. I think at that particular time, especially in the qualifying races, everybody wants to win, but they don't want to tear up their cars either. You want to put as little work as possible on your team, get to the race on Sunday.
There's still points on the line and a trophy. You had to be on your toes. Our car was fast enough to guard. They got side‑by‑side. That just slowed everything down.

Q. Even though the race tonight was a night race, what are some of the things you can learn being out front?
KEVIN HARVICK: For me, if you're going to win this race, you're going to need to be good out front. You're going to need to be able to guard, block, pay a lot of attention to who's coming, who's going, and the timing of it all.
That's why you have to race as hard as you can, in my opinion. You can't come from the back any more and drive your way up through there at the end of the race. You have to be fluent with your moves, precise. If you don't, you lose a bunch of spots.
That's the biggest thing, that fluent routine of doing it over and over, looking in the mirror, being as comfortable and relaxed as you can with the wheel, being able to be comfortable and relaxed but also be able to look backwards.
Leading probably looks easy on TV. You spend more time looking backwards than you do forwards. There's definitely an art to it that you get more comfortable with as you go through doing it a lot more.

Q. Did you come into the race feeling absolutely like you could win it? Do you feel really good about the 500?
KEVIN HARVICK: I felt like I kind of let them down the other night, kind of turning their strategy off in the Clash, not pitting when we had planned on pitting. I felt like we probably could have put ourselves in the same spot leading the race and had a car that was fast enough to do that.
Tonight I wanted to make sure I was focused and ready mentally for the chess match that was going to happen, really just slow myself down to be patient and not just try to make things happen. You're not going to make things happen unless you have a whole bunch more cars out there. You're going to have to fill the holes, do what you can when you can.
Tonight it was about execution of getting onto pit road, getting in the pit box, putting the fuel in the car, getting down pit road, all those little things. Those are the things I tried to focus on tonight and execute their plan, not get in the middle of it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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