Kevin Harvick using winning Atlanta chassis at Darlington

Kevin Harvick dominated at Atlanta in February.

Kevin Harvick will pilot the No. 4 Busch Beer Ford Fusion built on Chassis No. 1038 in Sunday night’s Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. Built new in 2017, Chassis No. 4-1038 made its NASCAR Cup Series debut in April at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. Harvick won the pole with a lap of 27.217 seconds at 198.405 mph. He went on to lead 77 laps and secure a fourth-place finish. In its next start at Dover (Del.) International Speedway in June, Harvick started 18th and finished ninth. At Darlington, Harvick won the pole with a lap of 27.669 seconds at 177.730 mph. He went on to lead 22 laps and scored a ninth-place result, finishing the race one lap down. At the fall Dover race, Harvick started ninth and finished 17th. In its final start of 2017, Harvick started third, led 38 laps en route to his first-ever Cup Series win at Texas, where he beat 2017 champion Martin Truex Jr. by 1.580 seconds. In its first start of 2018, Harvick dominated at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he started third and led 181 of the 325 lap event and crossed the finish line 2.690 seconds ahead of runner-up Brad Keselowski. In its most recent start, Harvick started 39th and raced up to 11th before cutting a tire and finishing 40th .

Darlington Notes of Interest: 

 Dynamic Duo – While this is Harvick’s 18th year in the NASCAR Cup Series, it’s only his fifth with crew chief Rodney Childers. Since joining forces at SHR in 2014, Harvick and Childers have combined to produce 21 points-paying victories, the non-points-paying 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, 17 poles, 85 top-five finishes and 118 top-10s while leading 7,863 laps. They won the 2014 championship, finished runner-up in the 2015 title chase to champion Kyle Busch, finished eighth in 2016 and third in 2017. The team has qualified for the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway three of the last four seasons. 

 Harvick has career totals of 44 wins, 23 poles, 185 top-fives, 327 top-10s and 12,289 laps led in 634 starts. 

 His most recent Cup Series win came at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn (Aug. 12, 2018). 

 His last Busch Pole came at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City (May 11, 2018). 

 On Point – Harvick arrives at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway second in the championship with 960 points. Harvick trails series leader Kyle Busch by 43 points. 

 Darlington Numerology – Harvick has one win, three poles, six top-five finishes, 10 top-10s and has led a total of 581 laps in his 21 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Darlington. His average start is 14.2, his average finish is 15.3 and he has a lap-completion rate of 95.7 percent, completing 7,108 of the 7,425 laps available. 

 Harvick at Darlington since 2014 – The combination of Harvick competing at Darlington in SHR equipment is impressive. In his last four NASCAR Cup Series starts at Darlington – all of which have come with SHR – Harvick ranks first in total points with 172. He has finished inside of the top-10 in each of the four events – three of which were top-five results. He has an average start of 1.5 and an average finish of 4.2. And of the 581 laps Harvick has led at Bristol dating back to his rookie year in 2001, a total of 518 (more than 89 percent) have come with SHR despite only four (19 percent) of his 21 Darlington starts being with SHR.

KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Busch Beer Ford Fusion: 

Your thoughts about heading back to Darlington for this special race weekend? 

“Darlington has kind of found its niche with all the throwback schemes and all the things that they do with the snack bars, tickets and all the cars. It’s great to see all the teams participate – and for me it’s something that bring backs a lot of memories as to when Fred Wagenhals was around selling diecasts and creating programs and things like we used to do in the past. It’s great when you see a program come together like that.” 

What’s it like to have so many drivers from the past at the track for throwback weekend at Darlington? 

“We had a car inspired by Cale Yarborough’s a couple of years ago. We had him at the racetrack, driving around in the pace car and seeing some of the old-school guys who work on my racecar be as excited as they were, guys who don’t ever really get excited about anything. To see how excited some of those guys were when Cale came, we took a picture with the whole team at the car and, to have the whole paint scheme and everything to go with it, was really great. We do a lot of things with those guys now at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. To see those guys now at the racetrack signing autographs for the fans adds just a little bit to that event. To me, having Cale there was really neat, to have him around and talk to him. It’s something that means a lot because they’re a big part of the reason we’re here today.”