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Kevin Harvick: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series – Talladega Preview

Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest:
  • Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team travel to Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway this week for Sunday’s Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race looking to improve their luck at the 2.66-mile track.
  • Last Time Around… While Harvick has earned one win (April 2010) and a number of other solid finishes at Talladega, his past two trips to the superspeedway haven’t netted the same level of results. In May, Harvick recorded his first DNF (did not finish) at Talladega after he was caught up in a multi-car wreck that sidelined the No. 29 Chevrolet just 10 laps shy of the finish and left the team with a 25th-place effort. In last fall’s race at the track, Harvick was also involved in a wreck. The team spent multiple laps in the garage area making repairs to the car before Harvick returned to the track. He was scored with a 32nd-place finish.
  • Chassis Info… The No. 29 team will utilize chassis No. 387 from the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) stable this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway. Harvick raced this car to a seventh-place finish in February’s Daytona 500.
  • Harvick at Talladega… Harvick has 23 NSCS starts at Talladega Superspeedway. In that span he’s earned one win (April 2010), six top fives and 10 top-10 finishes. Harvick has led a total of 143 laps and completed 97.7 percent of the laps run at Talladega since 2001 (4,257 of 4,359 laps). His average starting spot at the superspeedway is 22.0 and his average finishing position is 15.6.
  • Talladega Loop Data… Since the inception of NASCAR’s Loop Data Statistics, Harvick has competed in 15 races at Talladega Superspeedway and holds several impressive marks, including: third in Fastest Laps Run (69 laps, 3.0 percent); fifth in Closers; sixth in green-flag passes (4,788 passes); and eighth in laps led (107 laps, 3.7 percent).
  • In the Rearview Mirror… Last weekend at Dover International Speedway, Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team scored a 13th-place finish after falling multiple laps down when the caution flag waved in the midst of green-flag pit stops.
Harvick talks about racing at Talladega Superspeedway: 

What is your approach to racing at Talladega Superspeedway? 

“I go to Talladega with the approach that you have a 50-50 chance when you get there. You’re either going to have a great day because you finished or you’re going to have a torn up race car. I’ve gone with that mentality since my first race at Talladega. It’s just one of those race tracks where you really don’t have any expectations and you just go out and run as hard as you can because there are so many things out of your control.

“I love this style of racing. I love the strategy and the pushing and the shoving and all of the things that come with it. With that comes a lot of risk as far as getting torn up. Kind of like the rest of ouryear, we haven’t gotten the finishes that we’ve been accustomed to in the past at the superspeedways. Hopefully, we’ve been saving all of that luck up and can get through this weekend and put ourselves up front when it counts. It’ll be fun to see how it all shakes out.”

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Posted by on October 3, 2012. Filed under NASCAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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