Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
After scoring a fifth-place finish at Pocono Raceway in June, Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team return to the 2.5-mile track, nicknamed the “Tricky Triangle,” this weekend for Sunday’s Good Sam RV Insurance 500.
Harvick will race chassis No. 318 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. The No. 29 team utilized this car to score an 11th-place finish at Kansas Speedway earlier this season. Harvick also raced this car to three top-10 finishes in 2010: third at Kansas Speedway (October 3), eighth at Charlotte Motor Speedway (October 16) and sixth at Texas Motor Speedway (November 7).
In 21 starts at Pocono Raceway, Harvick has earned five top-five and eight top-10 finishes. His best finishing position at the 2.5-mile track is a fourth-place result, which he’s scored three times (August 2004 and June and August 2010). Harvick’s average starting position there is 20.2 and his average finishing position is 14.0. He’s led just five laps at Pocono, but has completed 95.6 percent (3,910 of 4,089) of the laps run in the races he’s competed in.
Harvick holds a number of impressive loop data statistics at Pocono Raceway: first in green-flag passes (1,121); fifth in closers; fifth in quality passes (560); seventh in speed in traffic; ninth in drivers rating (92.0); 10th in average green-flag speed (158.636 mph); 10th in laps run in the top 15 (1,588 - 63.2 percent); 10th in average running position; and 10th in driver fastest late in a run.
Kevin Harvick on racing at Pocono Raceway:
Looking ahead to Pocono, are there more passing zones there than most tracks you go to?
“Well, the race track creates that with the bumps and the asphalt being wore out. It’s a fun race track to drive because you have options. With the race track being in the shape that it is, there’s a lot of opportunities to make a lot of mistakes with your car sliding, bouncing, the tires falling off, everything that happens. I think from a driver’s perspective, that’s a good thing because you have an opportunity to make your car handle better and have those options to pass people.”
We were just at Pocono a couple months ago. Will the track be the same or will it have changed at all?
“You would think it’d be a little warmer, so obviously the cars should slide around a little bit more than what they did the last time, but it shouldn’t be a huge difference. Pocono is a unique race track in itself with all the bumps and the tires falling off more than a lot of the places we go to. It’ll be the same old Pocono, maybe just a little warmer.”
What was your take on shifting there?
“It was a lot of work – six times a lap. I don’t know who thought of that rule, but they should put them in the car and let them shift with us. I liked it when we used to have the overdrive and you’d shift down the front straightaway and that was it. But, if they allow us to do it again, we’ll do it again.”
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