NASCAR might get to see a dream scenario play out later this month as Kevin Harvick will team up with Hendrick Motorsports as a standby driver for Kyle Larson. The 2021 Cup Series champion is set to take part in the Indy 500 that weekend and might not make it to the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro. A lot of fans may hope for Larson to not make it so that they can see Harvick race in an HMS car for the first time in his career and as it turns out, The Closer has been immensely impressed with NASCAR’s winningest team already.
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One of the most important things for a team, when a new driver comes in, is to get their body measurements, perform adjustments, and work on the seat fitting. Harvick did not have to do that at all. The #5 crew had some help getting the required measurements and executed the build inside the car perfectly. This impressed the 2014 Cup Series champion but that’s not all. Harvick was also quite impressed with how the #5 team, including crew chief Cliff Daniels, treated him as if he was the full-time Cup driver for them.
“My point is, the ability to execute the details even if you are given answers to the quiz and in today’s world, not every team has the ability to answer the quiz with all the questions already answered for them. You still have to take the answers and apply them to your situation, whether it’s your car, your driver, your team, your process, whatever that is. You can have all the answers to somebody else’s equation but you have to be able to execute them with the details that come with it,” the 48-year-old said on a recent episode of his Happy Hour podcast.
👍 @KevinHarvick was VERY impressed with @TeamHendrick during his seat fitting for the No. 5 car. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/kMt1or2pBZ
— HarvickHappyHour (@HarvickHappyPod) May 10, 2024
SHR stalwart extends assistance to HMS for Kevin Harvick
Rodney Childers and Harvick had one of the most incredible driver-crew chief relationships of the 2010s, winning the championship together in their very first year at Stewart-Haas Racing. Childers is still a part of SHR, currently working with Josh Berry, but that did not stop him from helping out his former driver out, even if it was for a rival as big as HMS.
“There are some things that had to be helped with like measurements and things like that and Rodney (Childers) has been willing to help them with some of the parts and pieces that they needed to do it but you still gotta execute it and I go to get in this car and there’s 10 people standing around the car,” Harvick said.
The Kevin Harvick-HMS partnership is as intriguing as it gets and race fans will be waiting with bated breath to see how the 2014 Cup Series champion performs in one of the best cars in the competition today.
