Despite Darlington Raceway dishing out its usual amount of chaos, Kevin Harvick was as steady as ever. Harvick came into Sunday’s (May 8) NASCAR Cup Series race with a streak of 12 consecutive top-10 finishes at the Lady in Black. He extended that streak for one more race, grinding his way to a fourth-place finish. On a day when many of the fastest drivers got knocked out of contention, Harvick methodically worked his way through the pack to score only his second top-five finish of 2022.
In fact, Sunday’s race was a microcosm of the past year for Harvick. Most of the time, the No. 4 team has been able to secure good finishes. Harvick scored a total of 24 top 10s last season, which was four more than he earned in 2014, his championship year. Most drivers on the grid would take a season with 24 top 10s in a heartbeat.
The only thing missing is wins. Harvick’s last victory came all the way back in the Bristol Motor Speedway Night Race of 2020. That was his ninth win of the season, unsurprisingly a personal best for Harvick and tops among all Cup drivers that year. Since then, 55 races later, Harvick remains shut out of victory lane.
Harvick’s drought is even more dramatic when you consider his history with Stewart-Haas Racing. Until last year, he and the No. 4 team never lacked for race winning speed. From 2014-2020, Harvick won 35 races, averaging an even five wins per season. Compare that to Harvick’s 13 years with Richard Childress Racing where he earned 23 wins, averaging 1.77 per year. Harvick clearly found something special with SHR that allowed him to reach a whole new level of performance.
But now, while Harvick’s rate of top-10 finishes has not slowed down, the rate at which he is winning races and leading laps clearly have. Before last year, Harvick’s worst season for laps led with SHR was 2017, when he paced the field for just 850 circuits. That was the year SHR switched over to Ford, and even so, 850 laps led across an entire season…
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