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Kevin Harvick said he never wanted to race again after his final Cup Series race in 2023, until a conversation with Chase Elliott at the Chili Bowl Nationals changed his mind.
Harvick told the story on The Dale Jr. Download with Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Harvick: ‘I’m tired of being critiqued’
“When I got with Cup Racing, I was like, ‘Man, I don’t ever want to race again. I’m tired of being critiqued; I’m tired of the pressure; I’m tired of the responsibility,’” Harvick said.
The Chili Bowl conversation
Harvick said Elliott told him at the Chili Bowl that he raced there to push himself.
“One thing that really struck me a few years ago was Chase Elliott at the Chili Bowl,” Harvick said. “He’s like, ‘I felt like I needed to step outside of my comfort zone and not worry about my result.’”
It took Harvick a while to take that approach himself.
“It just took me a little while to get myself to the point where I was like, ‘All right, well, I might go to the racetrack this week and get lapped,’ and I did,” he said.
“I was kind of p***** and then I got out and I drank a beer and I thought about that conversation and I was like, ‘You know what? I had a hell of a time.’ Yeah, it’d be really cool to win some. We won some of those races and ran up front in some and got our a** kicked in some, but they are all pretty fun.”
‘Here to have fun’
Harvick still runs select Late Model races, but without the pressure he put on himself in NASCAR.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m here to have fun.’ We’ll put an effort towards it but probably not going to go overboard with the effort to really get extreme with it. We have the greatest time ever,” Harvick said.
Harvick today
Harvick won 60 Cup races and the 2014 championship before retiring from full-time racing after the 2023 season. He is an analyst on FOX Sports‘ NASCAR coverage, hosts the Happy Hour podcast and is part of the group that now runs the CARS Tour.
Elliott, the 2020 Cup champion, finished second at Martinsville on Sunday and is out of title contention. The Cup finale is Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on NBC from Homestead-Miami Speedway.
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