How Kevin Harvick has dominated this wildest of NASCAR seasons at age 44

Kevin Harvick described winning the Brickyard 400 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the third time as “like living out your childhood dream.”

“I kind of just have to laugh about it and think back to all those times that you told somebody that you’re gonna go win the Indy 500 or race IndyCars or whatever the case may be,” Harvick said. “And now you’re here in a stock car and 20 years into your career and still going strong.”

The 44-year-old driver captured his fourth victory of the season and his third win in 20 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at the infamous motorsports track Sunday evening.

The overtime win put Harvick just one victory behind NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Lee Petty on the all-time Cup Series win list, and further propelled the No. 4 driver ahead of all other teams in the points standings. Harvick now leads the series by 85 points (637), ahead of Chase Elliott in second.

“Today I was as excited as I’ve been of any of the races I’ve won,” Harvick said after the race, describing his consecutive Brickyard 400 wins as “a little bit surreal.

“I know how many times we’ve had really fast cars here and come out on the other side of this.”

If it weren’t for a late-lap tire failure, Harvick said, Denny Hamlin — the only other driver who has won four races this season — probably would have taken the checkered flag. Hamlin was leading by more than a second in the final laps of the race, and Harvick said that he would not have been able to pass Hamlin’s No. 11 car from second place unless the caution flag came out.

And then it did, with five laps left in the race after Hamlin’s car hit the wall, allowing Harvick to breeze to a first-place finish in overtime.

“The restarts for me were our strong point,” Harvick said. “We would have needed a caution. We weren’t going to get by (Hamlin) under green.”

With only 16 Cup Series events completed and 18 points races remaining on the schedule this season, it’s still early to speculate about where Harvick will stack up during playoffs this fall. Still, there is no doubt that the No. 4 team has found its mojo early in the year and could be a top contender in the finals.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Harvick’s crew chief Rodney Childers said after the race. “Two Brickyard 400s, back‑to‑back. (Harvick’s) got three of them.”

“We love racing together,” Childers said. “It’s really about everybody else on the team, everybody back at the shop that builds great cars, our shop guys, our road crew, our pit crew. Everybody is just firing on all cylinders right now.”

Harvick agreed to the point that his Stewart-Haas Racing team has settled into the right chemistry. He and former driver Childers are in their seventh season together and have competed together the longest of any current driver-crew chief duo in the Cup Series.

“I think when you look at the root of the equation, it’s the team, right?” Harvick said. “It’s the crew chief and the driver that have been together, the engineer.”

“You keep adding little pieces to keep making that puzzle come together and fit together well,” Harvick added. “But experience plays a big role in this.”

Harvick’s team won the Cup Series title in his first season with SHR in 2014, and has finished in third place for the last three seasons. In addition to a new rules package for short-tracks that the team sees as an advantage, Harvick said the competition with Joe Gibbs Racing drivers has been a motivating factor.

“When you’re racing with Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch, you know that you’ve got to be on top of your game because the guys that are sitting on top of their pit boxes, they’re going to call a good race,” Harvick said. “You have to drive a good race, and it just brings out the A-game in your mind.”

That competition and sense of respect extends beyond the driver’s seat. After Hamlin crashed out of Sunday’s race, for example, the NBC broadcast showed the No. 11 crew chief Chris Gabehart exiting the pit box and walking back to the garage, past the pit box of Harvick’s neighboring No. 4 team. The members all high-fived and fist bumped Gabehart on his way out.

“I’ve known Gabehart since 1995 racing go‑karts,” Childers said. “His engine builder was my engine builder. We’ve had a lot of respect for each other over the years.”

Harvick used the same word.

“It’s just a lot of respect because it’s a very similar group,” Harvick said. “Both those groups (of Hamlin and Busch) are very similar to our group (with) crew chiefs that are races and team guys that have been together for a long time. It’s just enjoyable to race against really competitive guys, especially when you do it all the time.”

Childers and Harvick have now won 30 races together, but there are still imperfect moments that keep viewers on their toes. For example, Childers said there was miscommunication on the team radio Sunday in the final stage when Harvick couldn’t hear a call to pit earlier in the race, allowing Hamlin to emerge in front of Harvick off a critical restart.

Still, the No. 4 team was racing for the win and in prime position to overtake the lead when Hamlin’s tire corded and failed. Childers even indicated over the radio to the team that Hamlin’s tires were cording and to “keep pushing” him at end of the race.

Call it luck or call it experience. Harvick and Childers won again.

“We’ve been able to do some special things together,” Childers said. “To win 30 races together in, what, six-and-a-half years, seven years? I don’t know what it is any more, but 30 races is huge.”

Next week could provide another milestone for the veteran duo. Despite 53 career race wins, Harvick has never won at Kentucky Speedway, where NASCAR returns this coming Sunday for more Cup racing. Stranger things have happened during NASCAR’s 2020 season than a Harvick hot streak.