Was that Kevin Harvick’s last NASCAR Cup Series win? – Curtis M., Baltimore
That one’s hard to say.
With his win last weekend at Michigan International Speedway in the Cup Series, the 58th of his career, Kevin Harvick broke a 65-race winless streak dating back to the 2020 Bristol Motor Speedway night race. With Kurt Busch now missing a fourth race with concussion-like symptoms, Harvick also became the most experienced Cup driver in the field.
At age 46, and with retirement rumors circulating, it is worth wondering if Harvick will ever win again. Although, to be fair, many were already wondering that.
At the start of 2022, I made a sweeping claim in conversation with my brother that Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. would never win again. I predicted both veteran drivers would struggle to adapt to the Next Gen platform, go winless and hang up their helmets at the end of this year or next.
Harvick just proved me wrong, and I’m seriously second-guessing what I said about Truex.
If you thought Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr. were safe bets to make the playoffs going into the weekend, think again.
With Kevin Harvick’s win, he jumps ahead of Truex with just ONE SPOT LEFT in the postseason remaining! #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/fupte1E9SQ
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 8, 2022
So I’m going to say no, Harvick is not done winning. It just took him some time to find his footing in a car more mechanically different from a 2021 Cup car than that 2021 car was from the 2001 Monte Carlo in which Harvick scored his first victory.
Sixty-five races isn’t even the longest streak Harvick has broken. In the 2010 Aaron’s 499 at Talladega, Harvick broke a 151-race winless streak dating back to the 2007 Daytona 500.
Before breaking that winless streak, Harvick was a hot-and-cold, flash-in-the-pan type of young gun. He missed the playoffs their first two years and again in 2009. He’d only won multiple races a year twice. Ten years into his Cup career, he’d won 11 races: not an insignificant number, but fewer than Ryan Newman.
In the 12-and-a-half years since the 2010 Aaron’s 499, Harvick has won 48 races, one championship and is a likely lock for the Hall of Fame. His second wind is one of the most impressive in NASCAR history.
‘@KevinHarvick turned 40 in late 2015.
He has visited victory lane 28 times in the #NASCAR Cup Series since then, putting him in an elite class of racing legends. pic.twitter.com/iFCkDyzHIV
— NASCAR on NBC…
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