Kevin Harvick Identifies “One of the Biggest Hot Buttons” of Venture He Co-owns With Dale Jr.: “Much Better at 10 O’Clock at Night”

There’s no denying that CARS Tour is on track to grow thanks to the series’ new owners in Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick, Justin Marks, and Jeff Burton. But after one season, what have been the areas of improvement that the new owners have identified that they can work on?

There was the area of imposing more discipline and strictness that Earnhardt opened up on. Then there’s also another area that Kevin Harvick recently described. And it is a big one, or in Harvick’s words, “probably the biggest topic.”

“The main topic was, and that was the start times of the races,” Harvick said during a recent press interaction. “That seemed to be one of the biggest hot buttons we had all year and as we got about halfway through the year, we kind of stopped and said, ‘What do we have to do to get the races start at 8 o’clock?'”

“Because the culture in short track racing and dirt racing and all those things, everything just starts way too late for streaming audiences or people bringing their kids in the grandstand and the safety of the crews getting home at 2 o’clock in the morning. It’s much better at 10 o’clock at night or 10:30 at night than it is at 2 in the morning.”

Along with these “small cultural things,” Harvick mentioned some other things as well, such as listening to the teams, tire distribution, or having practice late on Friday so teams don’t have to buy a hotel room on Thursday night.

Kevin Harvick is learning a lot from his role in the CARS Tour

Having mentioned the areas of improvement from an owner’s standpoint, Kevin Harvick described a few things he has learned along the way in his new role. “I think for me, having a car on the racetrack has really opened my eyes to what the contingency sponsors pay, what the teams are going through, and it’s really been fun,” he said.

“Because I never raced Late Model Stocks. I grew up on the East Coast by a local short track. For me, it’s been a lot of fun to work with these guys because they’ve been learning along with me.”

Harvick concluded his answer by pointing to Dale Earnhardt Jr., claiming that even though Junior has owned a car in the series for a long time, things are a lot different even for him sitting on “this side of the fence.”