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NASCAR CUP SERIES: BIG MACHINE HAND SANITIZER 400 powered by BIG MACHINE RECORDSJuly 5, 2020Kevin HarvickIndianapolis, Indiana THE MODERATOR: We are joined by the race winner Kevin Harvick. We'll go right to questions. Q. I heard you on the radio when Denny crashed. Do your thoughts immediately go to his well‑being or you have an opportunity to win the race? KEVIN HARVICK: Went from opportunity to win the race to immediately asking if he was okay. When you see fire, a hit like that, that's the A number one concern just to make sure that he's okay. That was a huge hit. We all want to win, but at the end of the day we all want to walk out of here with everybody healthy. I was glad for them to tell me that he got out of the car. This is the soft wall, birth of the soft walls. When you see a hit like that, you're reminded of how big of an impact that soft wall has had on our sport as they tell me he gets out of the car. That's the biggest concern, is everybody's health. Q. I think you're at 22 Playoff points, you have a pretty good lead right now in the regular season points. Did you start the season with a target of a number of Playoff points you wanted? If so, are you close to it? KEVIN HARVICK: I hadn't even looked. I hadn't had a goal. Our goal is to be competitive on a weekly basis. Usually that will take care of itself. Look, this whole thing right now, really even on a normal season, our season is so long, there's so many things going on, it really just comes down to a week‑to‑week sort of situation of what you focus on, what you think about. You get too far ahead, you just start jumbling thoughts together. I know if we keep winning, the points will keep adding up. When it comes Playoff time, those will be very valuable. Right now everything is going so well, we've got momentum, you want to win as many races as you can while you've got that wave of momentum on your side. Q. We heard how Rodney warned you that the 11 had been cording tires, to push him hard. From your end, were you looking good most of the race? KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, we had great tire wear today. They hit the cambers and everything right on. I was able to really push my car hard, as hard as I could push it. We still never got the handling 100% right. I was able to push him a little bit harder that last run than I had been before. I was able to stay a little bit closer. With the sun going down, the pace really picked up. The corner speed started to pick up, lap times started to pick up as well. We knew they were close on tire wear. Q. On the restart, the last restart, Cole behind you, Aric behind Matt, how you had him surrounded, as long as you don't do anything wrong, you should be sailing off into the distance in turn one? KEVIN HARVICK: Cole got a really good restart, was able to get attached to my bumper. Being right on the front row, especially late in the race, everybody is going to try to push as hard as they can to put themselves in a position to have the best restart. Cole had a great restart, got attached to my bumper. We were clear before we got to turn one. At that point you have clean air, and those guys were side‑by‑side. We were able to break away right there. Definitely Cole was a huge part of helping us win this race at the end. Q. What does it mean to have won this back‑to‑back, a third time? KEVIN HARVICK: Well, I can tell you today I was as excited as I've been of any of the races that we've won. Look, for me, I think you guys have all heard me talk about this, this is like living out your childhood dream, being able to race and win here. I know how many times we've had fast cars here, come out the other end. Now to have won it back‑to‑back, three times, is something that's a little bit surreal. I kind of have to just laugh about it, think back to all of those times that you told somebody you were going to go win the Indy 500, race INDYCARS, whatever the case may be. Now you're in a stockcar, 20 years into your career, still going strong. It's a great place to come to. It's a great place to race, something that I look forward to every year. Q. You were one of the few guys that was able to make some big passes on the track today. We don't always see that here in the Brickyard 400. What allowed you to make those passes that made a big difference today? KEVIN HARVICK: I had a really fast car on the restarts. That's always kind of been our strategy, to take advantage of the restarts and do everything we could to get track position when we could. We had some big moments and had to make some big moves in order to try to get control of the race. If you let it get strung out, it just becomes harder at that particular time. Definitely were able to make some big moves, have them work out. Really that's kind of the position that we're in. That's kind of the position that you put yourself in every time you come here. You want to be able to race for a win. It's the Brickyard, so you take chances. You try to put yourself in position. They called a good race. One little hiccup where the spotter was talking over Rodney, I didn't pit when Denny pitted, came out behind him. In the end we just kept grinding away and wound up in Victory Lane. Q. It puts an emphasis on how important the passes are when you get the opportunity and take advantage of them? KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, for sure. The strategy is don't screw up and lose three or four spots, try to maintain or gain one or two. When you're racing for the lead, there's one or two guys in front of you, those are the moments that make or break the race. A lot of times those things multiply. If you don't get two and you lose momentum, you lose two more, then it just kind of seems to snowball from there. If you can leapfrog a couple of them, get yourself a little further ahead of the game, it's progression in the right direction, because it can go the other way quick. Q. After Denny crashed, he was talking about how much he enjoys racing with you guys. Kyle Busch and others have made comments in the past about how they enjoy racing against your team, high level of respect. What is it about your group that people enjoy competing against you? KEVIN HARVICK: I think they know, first, that our cars are fast and we're competitive on a week‑to‑week basis. I think the second thing is, when you're racing with Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch, you know that you've got to be on top of your game because the guys that are sitting on top of their pit boxes, they're going to call a good race. You have to drive a good race. It just brings out the A game in your mind. It brings out that same game in the guys that are sitting on the pit box. You want to race the best. Those guys are two of the best. When you can race them head‑to‑head, go back and forth like Denny and myself have the last few weeks, Kyle in the past, I mean, those are things that you show up to do, right? You want to race against the best guys. That's what's at this level. I think when you wind up racing against guys like that on a week‑to‑week basis, everybody is racing hard, respects each other, especially the older that we get, I think we realize the things that we're doing are on the tail end of our career, and we're enjoying those types of things. You're still at the top of the game with those guys. It's just a lot of respect because it's a very similar group, both those groups, similar to our group, team guys that have been together for a long time. Denny's group hasn't been together for a long time, but the way they communicate, you would think they have. They've been really successful. It's just enjoyable to race against really competitive guys, especially when you do it all the time. Q. Back in 2018, you said at that point winning had become a game. Since then, you've won 16 races, including today. Is there any way to describe what it's like to perform at a level like this? KEVIN HARVICK: I think there's a lot of things that come into play there. You have a manufacturer change that's in the middle of that. But in the end I think when you look at the root of the equation, it's the team, right? It's the crew chief and the driver that have been together, the engineer. We had one engineer move on, but we've had the same engineer with Dax. You keep adding little pieces to keep making that puzzle come together and fit together well. But experience plays a big role in this. I think for us, when we come to the racetrack, I know I have to be prepared. I know every guy on my team is going to be prepared and has done everything that they can during that week leading up to that race to do 100% of their job. If you're not prepared, you've let every person down because that's the type of team that we've been fortunate to put together over the last seven years. Everybody at Stewart‑Haas Racing allowed us to do that from the beginning. It keeps progressing. You keep getting more and more details out of things because you keep the people together, and everybody believes in what I just said. If you don't do 100% of your job during the week, you have let the rest of the team down because they have. Q. Coming here this weekend, Jimmie, the news of his coronavirus situation, what is your concern overall dealing with not getting the virus? We learned Hendrick has a backup plan, Allgaier coming up and being a backup driver. Does Stewart‑Haas Racing have a similar backup plan? KEVIN HARVICK: We've had a backup plan since day one. I think that was one of the things that NASCAR talked about from the very beginning. How far you get to the racetrack, the timeframe‑‑ how early you get tot racetrack, the timeframe that's needed. Everybody for the most part I would assume has a backup plan. I know we do. I think, gosh, you do everything that you can do. With kids, you still have to function, right? For us, we've not been out to eat, we've not been to the grocery store. We do as much as we can at home. I don't know what I'd do if we didn't have kids because really they keep me sane during the week, trying to keep them busy. Keelan's go‑kart career has been fun. We've ran out and got our own stuff, tried to compartmentalize everything we have to be in our own little bubble when we do that. That's really about it. Fly up by myself. I sit in the motorhome by myself. It's all short‑lived. One day for the most part unless we're racing two races. Yeah, it's tough. If you let your guard down, you don't know. For the most part you're walking around wearing a mask. 90% of the people outside of this bubble on a normal day are not. That's the unfortunate part, is you have something as simple as wearing a mask when you're around people. That could be beneficial for all of us. It's tough. Jimmie's situation, it's terrible. I think we all are aware it could be us. You just never know. Yeah, you do the best that you can and hope that it works out. Q. Did you think you had enough to overtake Denny at the end if the tire hadn't blown? Were you looking forward to that? KEVIN HARVICK: No, we weren't going to get by him unless he made a huge mistake. Obviously that tire was wearing out. Yeah, I mean, at that point we were pretty even. The longer that we went, his car was a little bit better than mine on the long run. The restarts for me were our strong point. We would have needed a caution. We weren't going to get by him under green. Q. Having a formidable opponent like Hamlin, does it just make you want to come to the track and kick ass? Does it put you in a more competitive mode than normal because of the level you're both competing at right now? KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, it's interesting for sure. We kind of went back and forth there, I was leading, then he was leading, then he has trouble. You have to kind of smile about it because it's two teams performing at a tremendously high level right now. It has cycled around to the two of us for several weeks now. I think as you look at that, it definitely makes it fun. You want to have the upper hand on who finishes in front of who ratio at this point, especially because if that's the guy you're racing and the team you're racing, you want to at least stay even par. Those guys are good. They're doing a great job. Obviously leading the charge at Joe Gibbs. Our guys are doing the same. On days when you think you're out of it, you keep grinding, all of a sudden you wind up in Victory Lane, those are the days you smile because you know that everybody did their job and kept themselves in the game. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Kevin. KEVIN HARVICK: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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