Harvick plans to keep on keeping on during Chase

Harvick plans to keep on keeping on during Chase


By Jim Pedley
Special to Sporting News NASCAR  Service

Kevin Harvick has a game plan for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, which starts Sunday in the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It's a plan that varies not at all from the one to which he adhered during the regular season in 2010.
Any why should it? His plan did, after all, propel him to the top of the standings following the May race at Richmond , keep him there for the following 16 races before the start of the Chase and put him into a position he has wanted to be his entire racing life.
"Whether we win or lose," Harvick said of this year's Cup championship, "it's yet to be seen. But man, this is the position that everybody wants to be in."
Harvick's strategy for the 12-driver, 10-race playoff—which he will start as the No. 3 seed behind six-race winner Denny Hamlin and five-race winner Jimmie Johnson—is neither radical nor original.
It is a plan which takes into account the scoring system at hand. It's a plan which is based on consistently logging good finishes and avoiding trouble.
"I feel you're going to have to finish in the top five a lot and you're going to have to win a race or two to make that (winning a championship) happen," Harvick said of Chase strategy.
During the first 26 races of the season, Harvick's consistency was bested by none—he had 11 top-five finishes and 17 top-10 finishes. His three victories were surpassed by only Hamlin and Johnson. He had just one DNF.
From the sound of it, Harvick's confidence at this point is exceeded by zero others.
"This is the first time we had not just been coming and going seventh, eighth, ninth-place finishes," he said.
"I think we've got good momentum now. I think we have to take what we built upon and try to maintain that as we go from week to week."
The plan gets its first Chase test at a New Hampshire track where Harvick has been good but not great.
He has a victory in Loudon, but in his 18 other starts, he has just three top fives and nine top 10s.
"It's difficult," Harvick said of Loudon, "because the first few laps of a run are so hard to get a hold of the racetrack in traffic, and your car winds up pushing and sliding and doing all sorts of goofy things on restarts.
"The unique part of what happens at New Hampshire is if you don't pit for tires, you wind up getting these clumps of rubber on your tires, and the cars just slide around all over."
Harvick's average finish in Loudon is on the wrong side of the top 10 at 14.3. Among this year's Chasers, that ranks just eighth best. And the two drivers who are ahead of Harvick in the Chase-adjusted standings have average finishes there of 8.2 (Hamlin) and 9.0 (Johnson).
Just numbers, Harvick said. And not numbers which would call for fixing things in his operation which he views as not broken.
"I think it's important to just go there and have a solid day," Harvick said. "If we can put ourselves in position to win, that would be great. It would be nice to get started on the right foot, but I don't think winning necessarily has to happen at that particular race. The season is not just starting at New Hampshire … it's just go do the same thing."
And hope for the same outcome after 36 races as he had after 26.