Kevin Harvick breaks down how the Next-Gen car makes drivers look like ‘complete buffoons’ in some races
Kevin Harvick hasn’t won a single race in his second year in the Next-Gen car.
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Kevin Harvick (Via IMAGO)
2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick, who came into the sport as Dale Earnhardt’s replacement, is set to retire at the end of the 2023 season. The future Hall of Famer hasn’t had the best farewell season and might have to bid adieu to the sport with the worst season he had ever with Stewart Haas Racing.
He has been winless since the penultimate race of the 2022 regular season, and considering the poor season the whole SHR squad is having, it seems highly unlikely that the streak will be broken. Harvick is known for his consistency, which was in full display this year, as well as he got into the post-season on pints and has a huge gap to his teammates. But massive slumps in performance in some races were often a theme for him in 2023.
The No:4 SHR crew’s failure to nail the Next-Gen car setup on some tracks has been a major issue. It often, as pointed out by Harvick, makes drivers look like complete fools as they go from having the fastest car in a week to having the slowest another week. Harvick pointed out that it isn’t the issue limited to him; all the drives suffer from it.
“With this particular car, every car in the field has been in…a position like that where they just have weekends where you miss it. We had this exact conversation at the beginning of last year — there’s just going to be some weekends where you just totally miss it and look like a complete buffoon. That’s what we did [at Bristol]. Two weeks before that [at Darlington], we were the best car,” Harvick told Fox Sports.
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Kevin Harvick isn’t worried about his winless streak
While the fans are disappointed by the winless streak, Harvick isn’t, as he understands winning races isn’t always the main thing at NASCAR. He pointed out that there is more than just winning and losing to a race and said that for casual fans, it is hard to understand.
“There’s way more to it than just winning and losing. It’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever been a part of because there’s so much more to it. And it would take me hours to sit here and explain it to everybody,” Harvick said.
“Everything that comes with the whole picture this year is much more complex than a win or a loss — in how you represent yourself and the things that you say, and the things that you do, and all that goes with it,” he added.
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Justin P Joy
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