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NASCAR CUP SERIES: NASCAR ALL-STAR RACEJuly 15, 2020Kevin HarvickBristol, Tennessee THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Kevin Harvick. Why don't you just take us quickly through your run there in the All‑Star Race. KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, it was okay. We were on all sides of the handling. Just never really got that right. Had a good strategy there at the end. Just took a couple laps too long to get past some of the cars that we needed to pass. Just needed a couple more laps to catch the leaders. Just weren't going to beat the 9 heads up where we were, running third or fourth or whatever it was, without doing something different. A bunch of them didn't do anything but stay out, wound up having to pass a couple more than we needed to. Other than that, our Busch Light Apple Ford was okay. Just came up a little short. THE MODERATOR: We'll go to questions now. Q. What did you think of the whole night, having the fans back, the energy that that seemed to bring? Did it feel different? KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, having the fans back is obviously what we all want. Having that energy back in the stands was definitely fun to hear, fun to be a part of. Wish we would have had a couple more lanes to race in is the only thing I would like to see different. If we did that, if we raced here again, run all the other races so that the track was 100% run‑in so you could run all over the racetrack. It definitely was nice to have some energy back in the racetrack. Q. Would you like to see the All‑Star Race continue here at Bristol? Did this race tonight fulfill expectations? KEVIN HARVICK: I'd like to see it moved around. I don't think it should stay in one spot. I think we could definitely have the track prepared better if we did race here again. Heck, they didn't even clean the outside lane one time. Never really had a chance to even get high enough to get that lane to come in. The second lane came in, a couple cars made a little bit of ground. The bottom was so dominant, you had to run most of your laps down there. Q. How do you think the choose rule played out tonight? Did it affect the race on the restarts for you? KEVIN HARVICK: I think the thing that it does is it just takes all the question of where everybody is, who is where. When you get to that line, everybody has already made their choice. There's no funny business of people trying to start in a different lane or do something that they didn't choose to do. I think that went really well. For the most part I don't think there was any issues. Q. The All‑Star Race was 46 minutes, 19 seconds. Do you think it was too short in order to create what the All‑Star Race was intended to? KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, I don't know that I'm the right guy to ask that. I think a short race, you look at last week, for the most part it wasn't a very good race, you had a great finish. I think it all depends on how all that goes. I think tonight Chase Elliott winning makes it a better race just because he's obviously the most popular guy here. It's good for all of us when Chase wins. I think when you look at that, I don't know that the time really matters. I think, like I said earlier, the track could have been prepared and taken care of differently than it was tonight to allow for that top lane to come around. Q. You've been consistent on needing Chase to win more regularly in the past. For him to win this All‑Star Race tonight in front of the fans, what does that do for the momentum of the sport, just to have that kind of moment with the fans back here? KEVIN HARVICK: Obviously like I just said, I think when Chase wins, it's good for all of us. Obviously that's a good thing. Q. The other new thing tonight was the under glow. Was it weird seeing that in the cars in front of you? KEVIN HARVICK: I wish mine would have fallen off (laughter). The only person that I talked to that thought that that under glow light was good was my eight‑year‑old. Hopefully the kids liked it. It was definitely something that I'm way out of that age group for I guess you call it the under glow light. Q. You talked about the track prep. There were some questions in regard to track prep last week at Kentucky. Is there a concern with what's happened here? Is there a worry going into Texas where track prep can play an important role? KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, I mean, you're definitely dependent on the guys taking care of the racetrack. I think we definitely went to Charlotte and the track prep didn't seem like the PJ1 was what it had been the last couple years. It seemed like when we started at Kentucky, the track prep obviously wasn't very good for the Xfinity cars, dust flying everywhere. The top was just nasty dirty tonight, really no chance to ever even run up there. Yeah, I mean, the track prep piece of it, last week we showed up on race day, the PJ1 was put on the racetrack without anybody knowing. Definitely, yeah, I think you have to be concerned with it going to Texas because it hasn't been the same as what it was last year. Q. What's the lesson of this week, to avoid what's happened this week and Kentucky? KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, that's a good question. I think the one thing that lacks there is practice. I think everybody is kind of guessing at what's right and what's wrong. But the track was definitely not ready to race last week at Kentucky when those guys took off in the Xfinity race. Tonight there was no chance that the top groove was going to come in. There was enough setup up there, if you drove up there, it was going to take you two or three laps to get cleaned back up. Just wound up not being able to push it high enough. We still had a second groove, but I think a lot of people had the expectations that the bump‑n‑run was going to come into play tonight. When the bottom has that much grip, then it becomes kind of an aero game, which it kind of became tonight. Q. Everybody was hoping this race moving to a short track was going to give the Game 7 type of a moment. We didn't see that. Was the track prep and the lack of the outside lane the deciding factor? KEVIN HARVICK: You didn't have any options to move around, make your car do different things. A lot of times if you can't run the bottom, you move up to the top. It seems like the cars have a better chance to fix the problems that they had. With the short race tonight, not having an option besides the bottom, just kind of took all those things away of tools that you had to try to race and make your car faster. Tonight the 9 hit it. He had the dominant car in the lane we had available. THE MODERATOR: Kevin, thanks for joining us tonight. Good luck this coming week at Texas. KEVIN HARVICK: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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