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Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer Reunite With Nascar
Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer Reunite With Nascar
Clint Bowyer warned Kevin Harvick: You’re going to cry before your last Nascar Cup Series race. Harvick didn’t believe him.
Throughout his illustrious racing career, Harvick was a fiery personality, though rarely ever showed his true emotions. But Bowyer was right, and Harvick did indeed cry before his final Cup race with Stewart-Haas Racing at Phoenix Raceway in November when his two children Keelan and Piper keyed the radio.
Harvick, who is entering his first season as a broadcaster for Fox Sports, insists that he’ll be fine watching the Daytona 500 from the Nascar on Fox booth as an analyst for the first time come February. Bowyer insists that his longtime Cup teammate and first friend in the Nascar garage will feel it when he sees the 40-car field roar to life coming to the green flag.
“For me, that was my choice and that’s probably not the case for a lot of people as they go through their career,” Harvick said of his retirement. “Doing television is something I want to do. It’s going to be nice to get to the racetrack and look around because you get into that competition mindset. Your head is always down and you’re always grinding, worried about what your car is doing, where you’re going and who’s doing what.
Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer Reunite With Nascar
“Being able to look around and enjoy the atmosphere, seeing the crowd stand up when they take the green flag at the Daytona 500 is something I’m ready to see. I know, as a driver, you always take a glance at the grandstands. I will look down. I know I’m not supposed to look out the window for the green flag, because it’s a moment that’s really neat. I want to enjoy a lot more moments.”
Harvick and Bowyer were paired as teammates twice in their Cup careers. They began working together at Richard Childress Racing from 2005-2011, when Bowyer left the team for Michael Waltrip Racing. Then, after MWR shut down and Bowyer spent a year with HScott Motorsports, he landed at Stewart-Haas Racing as three-time Cup champion Tony Stewart’s replacement. During that time, Harvick joined Stewart-Haas Racing ahead of the 2014 season.
Bowyer retired from Nascar competition at the conclusion of the 2020 Cup season, making the switch to the Nascar on Fox booth alongside famed play-by-play voice Mike Joy. Harvick, meanwhile, kept racing for SHR until the end of the 2023 season. His storied Cup career will undoubtedly lead him to a seat in the Nascar Hall of Fame, boasting 60 Cup wins, the 2014 championship, two Xfinity Series titles (2001 and 2006) with 47 wins, as well as 14 Craftsman Truck Series victories with two titles won by his driver and Hall of Famer Ron Hornaday Jr. while operating Kevin Harvick Inc.
The duo are reunited again. The Nascar on Fox booth will look — and sound — vastly different with them together after a rotation of guest analysts in the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Bowyer and Harvick just finished their preseason photoshoot, and the two couldn’t be more excited to be paired together again.
“I can’t get rid of him,” Bowyer said with his signature wide smile. “The better part of my career was alongside Kevin. When I came into the upper ranks of Nascar, Kevin was the first person I knew in the Nascar world. I don’t know how we always find each other, but here we are.”
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The camaraderie between the two former teammates will likely be quite noticeable. They are polar opposites, and “opposites attract,” Bowyer joked, going as far as comparing their friendship to a marriage.
“He’s everything that I’m not,” Bowyer said. “I’m the opposite of him.”
The dynamic duo first met at a Sonic Drive-In. Yes, the fast food drive-in. It was 2003 and Bowyer was sponsored by the local Kansas City Sonic proprietor. At the same time, Harvick’s Xfinity Series car for the Kansas Speedway event was also sponsored by Sonic, and they had a guest appearance scheduled. Bowyer brought along his asphalt late model, while Harvick appeared alongside his Cup car.
“That was the path and dream you hoped to be on, and here it was in a Sonic Drive-In,” Bowyer said.
When the two became teammates at RCR, they even shared the No. 21 Xfinity Series ride together in 2004. They’ve been inseparable for two decades.
To prepare for Harvick’s second career, he’s relied not so much on Fox Sports’ plethora of former athletes-turned-analysts for advice, but on Bowyer. Bowyer credits four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon, who was a Nascar on Fox analyst from 2016 until he was named vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports in 2021.
“I want people to feel like we’re literally in their living room hanging out,” Bowyer said. “We’re binge-watching a good race go down.”
On Jan. 17, the trio did their first practice race together with the Nascar on Fox production team. While Harvick admitted he needs to establish chemistry with Joy, he doesn’t need to get to know Bowyer and that should give them an advantage.
“It’s the first time we’re around each other when we’re both not competing,” Harvick said. “Being in a more relaxed atmosphere is going to make it fun.”
The first time the trio will broadcast a live race will be the Busch Light Clash at the LA Coliseum on Sunday, Feb. 4 on Fox.
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A former Ferrari engineer has criticised the decision to bring in Lewis Hamilton and thinks the Brit’s presence will mean “a lot of potential for drama”.
At the age of 40, seven-time Formula 1 champion Hamilton will form a formidable driver partnership with Charles Leclerc. His big switch comes at the expense of Carlos Sainz, who has performed well for the Italian squad but who was axed so they had room for their blockbuster new signing.
But not everyone of a Ferrari persuasion is convinced that it will go well. Ernest Knoors, who spent many years as an engineer at Maranello, specialising in power units, worries that Hamilton’s presence could do more harm than good for a team that is finding its groove under Frederic Vasseur.
“A big name like Hamilton also brings a lot of politics and if politics within Ferrari are not managed well, then there is a lot of potential for drama,” he told Formule1.nl. “Hamilton has the tendency that if things do not work out, he turns his whole car upside down and starts experimenting.
“Ferrari believes very much in the big personalities and will follow him. But Hamilton is just someone you have to guide a little bit and not give the freedom to rebuild the whole car, because then it will go completely wrong. So I do not know if it is such a smart move, but of course it is nice for the sport.”
News of Hamilton’s planned move broke on February 1, coinciding with football’s Transfer Deadline Day. That the back pages of many newspapers were dominated by the decision of Hamilton to swap Mercedes for Ferrari was testament to the magnitude of the announcement.
Sainz was not surprised as he had been informed by his team of the plan ahead of it being made public. But the Spaniard responded well with two victories to date this season and five further appearances on the podium, on the way to what looks likely to be a fifth-placed finish in the championship – two spots and 54 points ahead of Hamilton.
Sainz has signed for Williams next year and, after several years of running at the front of the grid, will focus on his new challenge of helping restore one of the grid’s most historic teams to its former glory. But Knoors believes he should have been kept on by Ferrari instead.
The Dutchman added: “I see Lewis Hamilton’s arrival at Ferrari more as a PR move. With all due respect, Hamilton is not going to take that Ferrari from P6 to P1. He will get the most out of it, but what Ferrari has to do is make that car faster. And if you make that car faster, you can easily drive at the front with the current line-up.
“Besides, as a team you have to look further on the horizon. If Hamilton becomes champion in the coming years, he and Ferrari will become immortal. But if you want to build a team with talent for the next five years, are you going to build on Hamilton? No, because he will really be finished after two or three years. That is why I would have kept the very strong line-up that Ferrari has now.”
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Chase Elliott had a front-row seat for one of NASCAR’s most bizarre moments of the 2024 Cup Series season. At the start of Stage 2, the pace car dove onto pit road in front of Elliott; however, it was a tad too late. The pace car made contact with the sand barrels at the entry of pit road and caused a red flag for cleanup.
Initially, there was some speculation on the NBC Sports broadcast, even from the No. 9 team, that Elliott made contact with the pace car. Fortunately, the pace car didn’t slide across the No. 9 car’s nose, but it undoubtedly provided one of NASCAR’s craziest red flag moments in recent memory.
Below, you can listen to Elliott and the No. 9 team react to the pace car crashing into the sand barrels on pit road at Phoenix during Championship Weekend!
Reflecting on the recent retirement of 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr., Earnhardt didn’t mince words about the toll NASCAR takes on its drivers. Speaking candidly, the two-time Daytona 500 winner admitted that the pressure to perform every week left him feeling miserable for most of his racing career—a sentiment he believes is shared by many of his peers.
“Right or wrong, racing made me a miserable person 90% of the time,” Earnhardt confessed. “And him too. I mean, ask Kyle Busch, ask anybody—unless you’re winning, you’re not happy.”
For these elite drivers, the sport is a relentless grind. A podium finish might bring temporary relief, but anything short of victory is often a source of frustration. The immense effort poured into preparation and execution rarely feels like it pays off unless the checkered flag is theirs.
Earnhardt highlighted the mental toll of falling short, explaining how the relentless focus on winning can overshadow the joy of simply competing. Even a solid performance feels hollow compared to the euphoria of a win.
“Unless you’re winning, you’re not happy at all,” he said. “You’re okay with a good run, but for the most part, all the effort it takes just to run good—it doesn’t weigh out.”
For drivers, the stakes are sky-high every week. Sponsors, fans, and teams demand nothing less than excellence, leaving little room for error or personal satisfaction in anything less than a dominant performance.
Earnhardt also shared insights into his friendship with Martin Truex Jr., who recently announced his retirement. While the two often spend time hunting together during NASCAR’s off-season, Earnhardt noted that the stress of racing even creeps into their leisure activities.
“When I’m with him during hunting season, it’s always in the back of his mind,” Earnhardt said. “It’s that stressful part of the year when he’s as miserable as he’s going to be.”
Now, with Truex stepping away from the track, Earnhardt looks forward to seeing a lighter, happier version of his long-time friend. Without the weight of weekly competition hanging over him, Truex might finally be able to relax and enjoy the outdoor lifestyle he cherishes.
“It’ll be fun to see him loosen up,” Earnhardt added.
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