Kevin Harvick Las Vegas chassis 3-for-3 in top-fives

Harvick's Vegas chassis in 2017: 2nd, 2nd, and 3rd. Pretty good stuff.

Chassis Information: Chassis No. 4-1041:

Kevin Harvick will pilot the No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion built on Chassis No. 4-1041 Sunday in the Las Vegas 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Built new in 2017, Chassis No. 4-1041 made its debut at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway in June, when it started 12th and finished second to race-winner Ryan Blaney by .139 of a second. It made its second appearance in July at Pocono, where Harvick started sixth and finished runner-up to Kyle Busch by 6.178 seconds. It made its final appearance of 2017 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway in October, where Harvick started third, led a race-high 149 laps and finished third.


KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing: 

What’s it like to sit here with 99 wins in NASCAR’s top three series and to be chasing win No. 100? “It’s crazy that you can sit here and think that I’ve won 99 races in NASCAR’s top three series. I’m honored to say that I’ve gone to victory lane – ever. To be able to live out and get paid to do what you used to do for a hobby and now call it your job is pretty incredible. For me, it’s really taken up until I went to Stewart-Haas Racing to have an appreciation of how much you actually love sitting in this racecar. I am so lucky to be able to do what I do, drive around in circles, travel to all these places – there really isn’t ever a day that my job isn’t fun. To be able to have won that many races with some great people at different teams and different racetracks is something I really don’t ever think about it. I don’t ever look at stats a lot. I like to look at stats, but I like to look at everybody else’s stats when I’m doing the TV stuff. For me, it’s my job. It’s what I do. We’ve been fortunate to have so much success at it.” 

What was it like to have all four Stewart-Haas Racing cars perform well at Atlanta? 

“Everybody was really pleased with the performance at the first 1.5-mile race. The thing I took away from it was the No. 10 car and Aric Almirola were more competitive for us and that is important for us to have that extra set of notes that we really hadn’t used the last several years because that car hasn’t performed well enough. It hasn’t been competitive enough to really bring anything to the table. To see that No. 10 car running well is great for myself, Kurt (Busch) and Clint (Bowyer) and, really, everybody at SHR. To see Kurt up there leading laps. To see (No. 10 car crew chief) Billy Scott with a car up there that was winning the race with Kurt driving it had to be great confidence for him and his abilities. It was a great first weekend on the 1.5-mile tracks for SHR.” 

Compare Atlanta to Las Vegas. 

“The size of the racetrack is about the only similarity. Atlanta is so worn out and the surface is so abrasive. You go to Las Vegas and it’s newer and doesn’t have those huge rocks in the surface that wears the tires out. Las Vegas does still wear the tires out and you’ll have quite a bit of fall-off, but there is a really, really high pace. The hardest thing about that pace is the bumps in the middle of turns one and two on the bottom of the track. A lot of the guys will run the middle of the racetrack as the weekend goes on, and the groove will move all the way up against the wall. The other thing we’ll have to deal with is 20- to 25-mph winds at Las Vegas. A couple of years ago, we were in the middle of a sandstorm there at the beginning of the race. Vegas is really fast, and we deal with some fall-off, but we still carry a lot of speed.”