REVEALED: The real reason why Kevin Harvick is driving the No:29 at North Wilkesboro All-Star Race

The No:29 car at North Wilkesboro will celebrate Harvick’s Cup debut and an impressive 13-year stint with RCR.

REVEALED: The real reason why Kevin Harvick is driving the No:29 at North Wilkesboro All-Star Race

Kevin Harvick at North Wilkesboro (Credits: @ejorourke41/Twitter)

The 2023 season will mark the end of Stewart Haas Racing legend Kevin Harvick’s full-time NASCAR career. The 2014 Cup champion will retire at the end of the year. He will join Fox Sports as a broadcaster for the 2024 season and will invest his time toward his son’s junior racing career. The veteran is also expected to invest time in non-NASCAR part-time racing.

The Cup garage will visit the North Wilkesboro Speedway for the first time since 1996 for the 2023 All-Star Race on Sunday. The Million Dollars prize awarding exhibition race will be hosted for the first time at Wilkesboro. Going into the historic track that was once forgotten, Harvick will use the No:29 instead of SHR No:4 as a throwback to his NASCAR debut. The No:29 car is one of the most significant car numbers of the sport.

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It is the car Harvick debuted in replacing Dale Earnhardt, who died in an unfortunate wreck in the 2001 season opener Daytona 500. Following Dale Sr.’s death, rookie Harvick was put into the RCR No:3 team, which was changed to No:29. The youngster wasted no time as he scored his first-ever win at Atlanta and paid the aptest homage to the seven times champion. Harvick wants to highlight his glorious debut once again with the No:29 at the exhibition event.  

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“The significance and the importance of keeping that car on the racetrack and winning that race early at Atlanta — knowing now what it meant to the sport, and just that moment in general of being able to carry on — was so important,” Harvick said.

“With this being my last year as a Cup Series driver, we wanted to highlight a lot of these moments, and many were made at RCR in that 29 car. So, with the All-Star Race going to North Wilkesboro — a place with a ton of history — we thought it made sense in a year full of milestones and moments to highlight where it all started,” Harvick added.

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It’s special for Kevin Harvick to race in North Wilkesboro

Kevin Harvick
Kevin Harvick

The veteran driver pointed out that he finds it pretty impressive to have the opportunity to race on a track that was once forgotten. It stopped hosting NASCAR Cup races half a decade before Harvick made his Cup debut. The veteran knows that getting the Cup race back to the track has been the dream of many individuals around the sport, making it more special for him.

“I’ve been here for a long time, and the young kids in this particular sport at this particular time remind me that I raced in a different century, most of them being born at the very end of it and some after. North Wilkesboro was not there when I started my career, so it’s been since 1996 that they’ve had a competitive race in the Cup Series on the racetrack,” Kevin Harvick said.

“To be able to go back to North Wilkesboro is special because it’s something that I’d never thought would happen — I really thought it was just a dream that was too big for a group of people who were working hard on a project to revive the racetrack,” the ex-RCR driver added.

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