Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
· Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Folds of Honor Chevrolet, will make his 375th start in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. In the midst of his 11th season in the series, Harvick has amassed 17 wins, 83 top fives and 164 top-10 finishes, and has led a total of 3,612 laps thus far in his career.
· The No. 29 Budweiser Folds of Honor Chevrolet team will race chassis No. 343 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. Harvick has competed in this car twice so far in 2011: he led five laps before finishing 42nd when the car’s engine expired at Daytona in February and scored a fifth-place finish at Talladega in April.
· In 20 starts at Daytona International Speedway, Harvick has racked up one pole award, two wins, five top-five and eight top-10 finishes. He’s led a total of 162 laps and has an average starting position of 15.4 and an average finishing position of 15.8. Harvick has also completed 92.7 percent (3,237 of 3,493) of the laps run at Daytona since he joined the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series circuit in 2001.
In last year’s Coke Zero 400, Harvick and the No. 29 RCR team started first and led eight times throughout the race for a total of 28 laps. He passed teammate Clint Bowyer on the final restart and beat the competition to the checkered flag by a 0.092-second margin to score his second Sprint Cup Series points race win at the 2.5-mile track.
Harvick holds a number of loop data statistics at Daytona: second in fastest laps run (63), fifth in closers, seventh in green-flag passes (2,477), eighth in green-flag speed and eighth in laps led (84).
Harvick will perform double duty at Daytona, piloting the No. 4 OneMain Financial Chevrolet for Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI) in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) race on Friday night in addition to his duties in the No. 29 Chevrolet in the Sprint Cup Series this weekend. The No. 4 Chevrolet is one of four entries KHI is fielding in Friday’s NNS race.
Kevin Harvick discusses racing at Daytona International Speedway:
How will this weekend’s race at Daytona compare to the racing in the Daytona 500?
“I think the race is going to be the same. I think the length of how long you can stay behind cars is probably going to change just because of the temperature that you’re going to have with the race track in the middle of the summer. So, I think the style of racing is going to be the same and the time behind cars is going to be different.”
What is the biggest thing you can take away from the Daytona 500 to apply for this weekend?
“I think everything applies. The way that we cool our cars is obviously the thing we’ve worked on the most since that particular race, but the style of racing and the way that you do things is going to be exactly the same.”
How do you have to approach Daytona with the two-car drafting?
“I think as a team we have a set strategy that we’re going to go into that race with this week and see how it works. Whether that’s right or wrong, I don’t know. We’ve talked about it for a couple weeks now and have a good plan.”
Now that you guys have run a couple of races with the two-car draft, do you like it?
“From a driver’s standpoint, you just do whatever is the most beneficial for you to go the fastest and I think that’s the best way to make time is to have the two-car draft. Until the track looses grip or something changes, it’s going to be that way.”
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