Winless streak “no match” to NASCAR career start

The 46-year-old native of Bakersfield, Calif., has won 59 races in the NASCAR Cup Series as well as a championship in 2014. He also has a pair of Xfinity Series titles along with 47 wins in that series and 14 in Trucks.

He’s also had his share of dry spells. A win in April 2010 at Talladega, Ala., broke a 115-race winless streak that dated back to his victory in the 2007 Daytona 500.

And on Sunday, Harvick’s improbable win at Michigan International Speedway ended a 65-race winless streak that dated back to the 2020 season, in which he won a career-best nine races.

Entering the race, Harvick had led just 13 laps all season, but a timely caution following his final green-flag pit stop put left in the lead.

He then held off a slew of contenders on a restart with 35 of 200 laps remaining and beat Bubba Wallace by 2.903 seconds to the checkered flag.

Nothing compares to 2001

With his career winding down, the most recent streak may have seemed to be the most difficult to deal with, but to Harvick, the highs and lows are all judged against the improbable way his career in the Cup Series began.

“There’s really no match for jumping in a race car and taking over for Dale Earnhardt. There’s nothing like that was for the first six or eight weeks,” Harvick said. “You just can’t match it. Never will. Never come close. There’s nothing even close.

“I mean, there’s never going to be a media session that big again. There’s never going to be a conversation that big again. There’s never going to be a bigger moment in my career. I’ve had all those.

“It’s just the rest of this stuff is pretty easy to deal with compared to those moments.”

Harvick is right.

Earnhardt’s death in a last-lap wreck in the 2001 Daytona 500 stunned the sport and sent Harvick’s life into a wild spin.

A driver who was planning to run a full schedule in what was then called the Busch Series as well as do a handful of Cup races was suddenly thrust into competing in both series fulltime. Just 25 years-old at the time, Harvick was stepping in to follow one of the sport’s iconic drivers.

Two weeks later, Harvick’s Cup Series victory at Atlanta with Earnhardt’s team – in just his third career start – not only catapulted Harvick’s career but also showed the sport would survive the tragic loss of one of its heroes.

Kevin…