Kevin Harvick breaks down how Dale Earnhardt’s tragic death ‘instantly changed’ his NASCAR career
Kevin Harvick's NASCAR Cup debut was as the substitute for the late Dale Sr. a week after his tragic death.
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Dale Earnhardt and Kevin Harvick (Via IMAGO)
Seven times NASCAR Cup champion Dale Earnhardt’s tragic accident in the 2001 Daytona 500 changed the lives of many in the sport, and Stewart Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick is among the few who saw their life change in an instance. A Young Harvick was promoted to drive the No:29 car with Dale Sr.’s team, and he made his Cup debut with a bag of expectations a week after the tragedy.
Harvick had just completed only his third full-time season in NASCAR when he got the Cup call. He raced two years full-time in the Truck Series before RCR signed him for the No:2 Busch Series ride. Harvick finished his first season at P3. He was called to the Cup team after Daytona while competing in the second tier.
Harvick ended the season as the Busch series champion and scored two victories in the Cup series. He was able to get the fans on his side and thrive despite colossal pressure. Harvick recently pointed out that his carer had an unnatural progression following Dale Sr’s death and admitted he wonders what it would’ve been if not for the crash.
“You wonder what it would have been like if you just worked with that group of guys that you worked with through the Busch Series days and went into Cup with the natural move through the series and through your career,” Harvick told Jeff Gluck in an interview with The Athletic.
“(After Earnhardt died), it just all instantly started, and you had your biggest press conference, and you had your biggest win, and you had your biggest moments and things to work through in the very first year — instead of that natural progression through the ranks. So, that Earnhardt moment for me is just so much different than everybody else in the way I started my career. You just wonder what that would have looked like if Earnhardt didn’t have his accident,” Harvick added.
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Kevin Harvick explains some of the hardest decisions of his career
Carer chances play a major role in achieving success in motorsports, as being on the right team at the right time is necessary to win titles. Making bonds, friendships, and connections with the major players in the market is also a major step. To do it, drivers often have to make some hard calls, and Harvick had to do them as well.
Harvick started his top-tier NASCAR career driving for his father, Mike Harvick, in 1995 and after at the end of next season he made the hard call and joined Spears Motorsports as a mechanic before landing a full-time ride with the team in 1998. The very next year, he joined Brad Daugherty’s Liberty Racing another tough call.
“I think back to 1996, and if I said, ‘OK, I’m just gonna stay here and race with the family team and not go to work for Wayne and Connie Spears to be the mechanic,’ or if I don’t say, ‘OK, I’m going to leave Wayne and Connie Spears and go to work for Jim Herrick and Brad Daugherty at the 98 truck,” Harvick said.
He was signed by Richard Childress Racing the next season for their Busch series team, and the rest is NASCAR history. Harvick believes these tough decisions got him where he is and hints that if not for the calls, he might have made it.
“There are six or seven hard decisions along the way. But for me, that moment of Earnhardt passing (in 2001) and taking over the No. 3 car — you just look at how different of a trajectory that puts you on as far as what I did and where I went,” the Ford driver added.
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Justin P Joy
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