Kevin Harvick is 9/2 favorite to win his 10th Phoenix Cup race

 

KEVIN HARVICK Phoenix Advance No. 4 Jimmy John's Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

●  Event:  Instacart 500k (Round 5 of 36) ●  Time/Date:  3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 14 ●  Location:  Phoenix Raceway ●  Layout:  1-mile oval ●  Laps/Miles:  312 laps/312 miles (502 kilometers) ●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 75 laps / Stage 2: 115 laps / Final Stage: 122 laps ●  TV/Radio:  FOX / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

●  Kevin Harvick is Freaky Fast at Phoenix Raceway. The driver of the No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang has won a record nine NASCAR Cup Series races at the 1-mile oval. No other active Cup Series driver has won more than three races at Phoenix. Former Cup Series driver Jimmie Johnson is the closest to Harvick with four wins at Phoenix.   ●  Harvick hasn’t finished outside the top-10 in his last 15 starts at Phoenix. The last time he finished outside the top-10 was March 3, 2013 when he finished 13th. That was eight years ago when “Harlem Shake” by Baauer was the No. 1 song on the Billboard music charts thanks to the meme it inspired. Don’t remember it? No problem. Let the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes show you how it was done back in 2013 by clicking here.   ●  Of Harvick’s nine NASCAR Cup Series victories at Phoenix, he won four straight between November 2013 and March 2015. The streak ended when Harvick finished second at Phoenix in November 2015, but when the series returned to the track in March 2016, Harvick won again. Harvick is the only driver to win four Cup Series races in a row at Phoenix. Johnson was next best with three straight wins between November 2007 and November 2008. Only five drivers have won consecutive Cup Series races at Phoenix, but Harvick is the only driver to win consecutive races twice, as he also swept both races in 2006.   ●  In 36 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Phoenix, Harvick has earned an average finish of 8.9, the best of any active Cup Series driver. Kyle Busch is next best with an average finish of 10.5 over 31 Cup Series starts.   ●  To finish first, one must first finish. Proving this mantra is Harvick’s lap completion rate of 99.8 percent at Phoenix. In fact, of the 11,239 laps available to Harvick at Phoenix, he has only missed 21 of those laps. Harvick’s first career NASCAR Cup Series start at Phoenix came on Oct. 28, 2001 when he started 37th and finished 17th.     ●  With the Estrella Mountains as its backdrop, Phoenix is a picture-perfect racetrack. Harvick has also been perfect at the desert oval. He has scored a perfect driver rating (150.0) at Phoenix on three occasions – November 2006 when he started second, led 252 of 312 laps, and won; November 2014 when he started third, led 264 of 312 laps, and won; and March 2015, when he started first, led 224 of 312 laps, and won.   ●  Harvick has also proven to be successful at Phoenix outside of the NASCAR Cup Series. He owns a NASCAR Xfinity Series win (April 2006) and four NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victories (November 2002, October 2003, November 2008 and November 2009).

Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Jimmy John's Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

You have nine wins at Phoenix, with the last one coming in March 2018. And even when the track was repaved and the start-finish line was moved to the dogleg, you’ve never finished outside the top-10. How different is the new layout compared to the old layout and what have you done to adapt? “When they moved the start-finish line, there was nothing really different, other than the restart. The restarts have become much more exciting because of the fact that you can use the apron and everything that happens going into what is now turn one. So, the restarts are the biggest difference since they moved the start-finish line. This configuration of racetrack is much different than what we had in the late ’90s, early 2000s. That track used to be very low on grip, and this one’s become lower on grip and now, with the PJ1 that they add on the racetrack, you have to kind of adapt just because of the fact that you never know what the grip level is going to be. The PJ1 and the start-finish line has added a couple of different elements to it that we didn’t have in the past.”   Do you view Phoenix as a new track where your past success doesn’t matter, or do you feel that your history there still carries some weight? “Our Jimmy John’s team won several races on this configuration. It’s still the same racetrack that we’ve won the majority of our races on. The only thing that’s changed is the start-finish line. As you look at last year, we ran really well at the first race and really poorly at the second race. A lot of that just depends on where the grip level is and where your car settings are for that particular weekend. But it’s still a racetrack where we expect to go and contend for a win every time and, if we don’t, the expectations were not met.”   Restarts in the NASCAR Cup Series are chaotic, but perhaps nowhere more so than at Phoenix as drivers use all of the infield portion of the dogleg to advance their position. How dicey are restarts at Phoenix, and when does it make sense to divebomb the dogleg and when do you need to take the traditional line around the track? “You just have to be aware of where you are on the racetrack, and it depends on which guy you are. If you’re the guy on old tires, new tires, inside, outside, you kind of have to have a plan before you get to the corner as far as what you want to accomplish. If you accomplish it, that’s fine, but if you don’t, then you immediately have to go into damage control, where you go on defense to try and be used up as little as possible. You can easily wind up in a bad spot in the middle, four-wide, because it funnels down pretty quickly off of turn two. There’s a wall that you come up on to the straightaway, and then everybody’s funneling from four-wide to at least three-wide. There are a lot of different angles of attack that happen, so you just have to be aware of your situation.”   How important is the spring race at Phoenix in terms of reconnaissance considering the track also serves as the season finale? “I would tell you very important but, based on what happened last year, it was irrelevant. We were racing for the win in the first one and then nowhere in sight of contention for the win in the second race. I think the second race last year taught us a lot about the different applications of the PJ1 and where you need to set your car, but this year there’s practice at the second race, so we’ll know all of that beforehand.”   How much can you improve today’s NASCAR Cup Series cars in the span of nine months at a particular venue, as that’s the amount of time between the spring race and the season finale? “There’s still going to be an evolution of setups and aerodynamics that create those common denominators throughout the year of things we do well, things we don’t do well, things that have worked for us, things that have not worked for us. You still build that notebook because every year is different based upon tires and racetracks and weather. Things that are different from last year will create a different pattern of things that will work out this year.”