NASCAR Cup

Loudon: Kevin Harvick press conference

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 2nd, the first of three Richard Childress Racing cars in the top eight. It was his best finish at NHIS. "My car was dead sideways for five laps and I just had to hang on and get ...

Published: Jul 21, 2003, 11:08 PM

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KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

Finished 2nd, the first of three Richard Childress Racing cars in the top eight. It was his best finish at NHIS. "My car was dead sideways for five laps and I just had to hang on and get what I could. For the most part we didn't make but a half-pound air adjustment in the right front tire all day. Jimmie [Johnson] just got so far out there at the beginning of that last run. We'd catch him a little bit each lap, but it wasn't enough to get up there. We were hoping for a yellow, but we'll take second. It was a good day for the GM Goodwrench car."

COULD YOU DESCRIBE THE NATURE OF THE RACING TODAY, INCLUDING THAT GREAT SIDE-BY-SIDE DUEL WITH JIMMIE?

"Yesterday I said that the track wasn't much different, but the groove moved way up today, My car worked really well right at the top of the groove. Some of the guys had their cars right down on the first dotted line. Jimmie had a really good car on short runs and a good car through the whole run, and he was able to run right down on the bottom side-by-side with me for quite a few laps. Finally, I just decided that was enough, and he kept inching up and inching up. It was better to just let him go at that point."

COULD YOU HAVE DONE THAT LAST YEAR?

"No, because you'd have made a mistake. If you were the guy on the top, you'd go straight up the track. You couldn't afford to. It's kind of like Daytona and Talladega, where everyone was fighting to stay down. You had to leave room for error."

DID THE TRACK HOLD UP ALL RIGHT?

"It was great all day long."

THE BAHRE FAMILY HAS TRIED SO MANY THINGS TO FIX THIS TRACK IN THE PAST/ HAVE THEY FINALLY HIT ON THE SOLUTION HERE?

"I think they've done a great job. Today you could run two grooves up the track pretty easy, from what I call the first lane. Passing has always been a battle for the bottom. If you bank every race track, it's not really fair to call yourself, I don't think, the best in the series because you don't race on all different styles of tracks. We need flat-track racing, I enjoy flat tracks and they've done a good job to get the side-by-side racing."

TALK ABOUT THE TRUST FACTOR THAT'S INVOLVED IN A BATTLE LIKE YOU HAD WITH JIMMIE?

"You just try to hold your line and hope that the guy underneath you doesn't make a mistake. I don't know how many laps we ran there, four or five, but at some point he's going to get a little bit impatient. I know I would, and you'll slowly creep up the track. At that point, it wasn't worth tearing up the car."

WHEN JIMMIE GOT PAST YOU LATE IN THE RACE, WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE AT THAT POINT? THAT ENDED UP BEING THE PASS FOR THE VICTORY.

"I told Todd [Todd Berrier, crew chief] on the radio, 'I hope that wasn't for the win,' and it turned out that it was. I had the same problem I had yesterday [in the Busch race]. I couldn't get my car going for four or five laps, and Jimmie was able to get going. The farther I pushed the issue, the worse it got for me. I just couldn't keep the car from spinning the tires. It was really loose on new tires."

CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR WEEKEND? YOU FINISHED SECOND ON SATURDAY AND AGAIN TODAY.

"Obviously, we want to win, but two seconds is something that if you're not happy with it, you're getting spoiled. It was a good points day for us in both cars and it's exactly what we need to do."

LAST YEAR YOU FINISHED 33RD HERE IN THE SECOND RACE. WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE?

"I finished eighth in the first one. We ran really well then and we spent a lot of time testing all our flat-track stuff and had a good car."

WHAT WAS THE CLOSEST YOU CAME TO WRECKING?

"I think it was with the 88 and somebody else. They got into each other. I was able to check up and just drove on by."

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