Without the wonders of the internet I’d probably have no idea who Kevin Harvick was, around the time he was pulled into NASCAR’s top echelon of Cup racing by Richard Childress, RCR, the mainstream press in the UK had barely registered RCR and NASCAR’s star driver Dale Earnhardt’s passing and showed no interest in the guy Richard would turn to in his hour of need.
Thanks to the likes of Jerry Bonkowski over at Yahoo! Sport I managed to keep in touch with what was going on in Cup competition at the turn of the Millennium.
In 2008 Jay Busbee at the same august internet enterprise ran a competition in which his readers were asked to fantasise about the future of NASCAR to be in with a chance of winning a number of NASCAR goodies.
My entry above imagined a 24 hour Cup race at the Nurburgring, which won me a “Americans For A Gunk Free Nation” cap signed by none other than Happy Kevin Harvick.
The following year I got even luckier thanks to a much missed website called rowdy.com and won a trip to see Kevin race in the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega.
The race was best remembered for the wipe out between winner Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards at the finish line, my man Kevin had a torrid time after his own early wipe out dented every panel on his car and his 2009 season was his worst since his semaphore slump in 2002.
On the plus side Kevin did win the 2009 Bud Shootout and in the post race interview uttered the phrase that I would eventually purloin and tweek for the title of this blog in 2010.
Photo Courtesy Kevin Harvicks Twitter feed.
The following season there were rumours that Kevin would switch to Haas Stewart Racing but these came to nought and Kevin bounced back to place 3rd in the Cup standings 3 times over the next four seasons.
At the end of 2011, to show how serious the matter of winning the Cup was, Kevin shut down his championship winning Kevin Harvick Inc Nationwide and Camping World Series Truck teams in his quest to focus on a Cup winning competitive edge.
Photo courtesy Kevin Harvick’s Twitter feed.
However despite finishing third in the final Cup standings last year Kevin decided that the switch to Stewart Haas Racing was due and amazingly after scoring 20 top ten finishes Kevin was crowned Sprint Cup Champion after winning his fifth race of the season at Homestead Miami to beat Ryan Newman by just one point.
The following day Kevin tweeted “All I can (do) is thank you to everyone for the support through all the years!! What a year this has been!!! WE WIN!!!”
Having been a Happy fan with a signed hat since 2008, I would like to congratulate Kevin and his SHR crew on their Championship success, thank him for keeping me entertained through thick and thin and wish him and his delightful wife Delana, who allegedly wears the fire suit, along with their son Keelan a relaxing festive break and best wishes for the 2015 season which kicks of on Valentines day with the Sprint Unlimited at Daytona.
Thanks for joining me on this “King Kevin 4 The Happy Nation !” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again for Ferrari Friday tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !
