Kevin Harvick learned a lot of lessons during his NASCAR career. Near the top of that list – perhaps even No. 1 – was not to tick off Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans.
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This week on FOX Sports’ Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick and his co-hosts discussed Martinsville Speedway, which hosts Sunday’s Cook Out 400, the seventh race on the 36-race Cup Series schedule.
Harvick has made 45 career starts on the .526-mile, paperclip-shaped short track, the smallest track on the NASCAR Cup circuit. And while he has five top-five and 20 top-10 finishes at Martinsville, Harvick took the checkered flag just once during his driving days in 2011. It was one of Harvick’s 60 career Cup wins.
But that win came at a cost as Harvick passed fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. with four laps to go, eliciting boos from Junior fans – and then an unprecedented welcome home ‘celebration’ of the wrong type for Harvick.
“I passed Dale Jr. for the win,” Harvick recalled. “That was one of those scenarios that it was always a lose-lose situation. It was great to win the race, but you were never going to be the hero of the moment because Dale was going to be the guy that everybody was rooting for – and you didn’t even do anything wrong.”
While Harvick didn’t believe he did anything wrong, Junior’s fans vehemently disagreed. Harvick had cost their favorite driver a win that looked like it was all but assured for Earnhardt Jr.
Harvick couldn’t wait to leave the speedway, the boos from Junior’s fans still ringing in his ears. His home at the time was in Kernersville, N.C., approximately 50 miles away (by the way, Harvick and his family now live in Cornelius, N.C., in Ricky Bobby’s real-life house in the movie, Talladega Nights).
As he was getting closer to his home, Harvick was finally feeling relaxed, ready to celebrate with his wife and children. Unfortunately, that celebration was marred somewhat as Harvick pulled into his driveway, as a group of loyal and upset Earnhardt fans were waiting for him. Instead of congratulating him on a hard-fought win, while not violent, their demeanor was still far different than cheering.
“I got home that weekend and there were people waiting at my front gate at my house, Junior fans just screaming and yelling at me as I went through the gates,” Harvick said. They were mad about any moment that he didn’t win.
“So you never knew what was going to be waiting for you on the other side of beating Dale Jr. on a particular weekend – but that weekend they were waiting for me at my front gate, at my house, for me.”
