Kevin Harvick is 5/2 favorite to win fourth time at Texas

 

KEVIN HARVICK Four Time   KANNAPOLIS, North Carolina (October 21, 2020) –Kevin Harvick drives the No. 4 car and his looking for his fourth consecutive victory in the fall NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.   Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), has a 41-point lead over the Championship 4 cutoff position with two races remaining in the Round of 8 of the Cup Series playoffs, but a victory at Texas automatically advances him to the winner-take-all season finale at Phoenix International Raceway.   In 2017, Harvick arrived at Texas with a three point advantage over the cutoff but, with 10 laps to go in the race, he got by Martin Truex Jr., for the victory and advanced to the Championship 4. The next year, he came into Texas with a 25-point lead over fifth place but led 177 laps and beat Ryan Blaney on a late restart to score the victory to advance once again.   Last year, he came to Texas 14 points outside the cutoff, but he led 119 laps en route to his third consecutive fall victory at Texas and, once again, advanced to the Championship 4.   Harvick comes to Texas this year with the largest margin ahead of the cutoff he’s had entering the race since 2017, but he knows first-hand that a victory is the easiest way to advance. Win and you are in.   He has three wins, two poles, 11 top-threes, 23 top-10s and has led a total of 654 laps in his 35 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Texas. But his last 12 races, all with crew chief Rodney Childers and SHR’s No. 4 team, have been outstanding.   He has finished in the top-10 in all 12 of those races with seven top-threes and two poles. Harvick will once again have the support of Hunt Brothers Pizza, which has partnered with Harvick in NASCAR for 11 years and last visited victory lane with him when he won the 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.   Harvick has also won NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series races with Hunt Brothers Pizza as the primary sponsor at Texas and at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, both in 2011. The company also sponsored him in the non-points NASCAR All-Star Race in 2014 and 2015 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway. Harvick finished second in both races.   Hunt Brothers Pizza moved up to the Cup Series for three races in 2019 and five races in 2020. With more than 7,800 locations in 30 states, Hunt Brothers Pizza is the nation’s largest brand of made-to-order pizza in the convenience store industry. Hunt Brothers Pizza offers original and thin crust pizzas available as a grab-and-go Hunk perfect for today’s on-the-go lifestyle, or as a customizable whole pizza that is an exceptional value with All Toppings No Extra Charge®. Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, Hunt Brothers Pizza is family owned and operated with more than 25 years of experience serving great pizza to convenience store shoppers through its store partners. To find a Hunt Brothers Pizza location, download the Hunt Brothers Pizza app by visiting www.huntbrotherspizza.com/app/   Harvick would like nothing better than to get to victory lane, for Hunt Brothers Pizza – and to clinch a spot in the Championship 4.

KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You are going to Texas. How confident are you that you can get the job done and lock down a spot in the Championship 4?   “Just going to go race and do the things we do every week. You never know how these things are going to play out. Our car was plenty fast to win the race (at Kansas Sunday) and just came up one short.”   Seeing how you got to size up Joey Logano at Kansas, you have two chances to build up your points before heading to Phoenix, a track you’re really good at. How confident are you about getting some points in the bank as you get to Texas?   “I feel better about Texas than I did (at Kansas). Our guys did a pretty good job of bringing a whole lot better car than what we had at the first race. If our car’s that much better at Texas than it was the first race, it should be a good weekend. You just never know how the cautions are going to fall, the strategy, anything like that. You just have to go lap by lap and see where it falls.”   Given your points situation, are you looking at Phoenix or is it still focus on everything you have to do to clinch first?   “I think everything has been pushed into the pile already. All these cars are pretty much prepared throughout the next three weeks, with the travel to Phoenix, Texas, back to Martinsville. Everything is already prepared. I don’t think we would do anything any differently than what we have right now just because of the fact that it’s tough to change course right now because of where we are in the schedule and the logistics that have to go with that.”   You’ve gone on and won a championship before, been in these situations. How do you feel about this team from the year you won the championship? Is everything in place, and do you have the same confidence level you can make it all happen?   “I feel a lot better after (Sunday), getting out of (Kansas) with a good day, leading laps there. I feel good about that leading into Texas. I think as you look at Martinsville, I feel a lot better about it than what we were the first race. Obviously, the first race we had a whole bunch of problems with no fans, alternator, all the things that went wrong. We ran well at Phoenix. I think we just have to see how the chips fall in the next three races and see where it all ends up.”