Kevin Harvick is fully aware of how difficult winning at Talladega Superspeedway will be in Sunday’s GEICO 500.
Harvick has one Cup Series win at the 2.66-mile Alabama track, but that came during his days with Richard Childress Racing. Since he joined Stewart-Haas Racing, he has not scored a top-five Talladega finish.
Harvick chalks up his recent Talladega performance to the unpredictable nature of restrictor plate racing.
“As you look at it for me, personally, it’s been a destruction derby over the last couple of years,” Harvick explained. “We’ve run really well at Talladega, but that’s just kind of the phases you go through when you go to Talladega. I’m doing worse than 50-50 on whether you crash or finish the last few years but, in my opinion, it’s one of those places where you want to race up front and race hard all day because you have to try to win stages.
“I believe you have better odds at the front of the pack when it comes to staying out of a wreck if you can keep that track position all day. You’re going to race in a pack, three wide at times, and you’re going to get pushed and have to push at times, and you just never know what’s going to happen because Talladega is its own animal.”
Racing at Talladega means drivers have to use tactics they may not be comfortable with and that includes Harvick.
“I don’t like blocking, but it’s a necessity,” Harvick said. “Blocking is something that has evolved over the years as people have figured out trying to time the runs, and people have figured out when you can block and when you can’t. It’s just a matter of putting yourself in a position where you think you’re making the right move, and sometimes you make the wrong move, and that’s what happened to us at Daytona.
“Brad Keselowski and Chase Elliott got together from what looked to be a block from Chase. It’s just a game of inches. It just really is a high-speed chess match that you have at 200 mph – and this week will be absolutely no different.”
That chess match Harvick speaks of will become more intriguing as the 500-mile race wears on. The maneuvering in the closing laps to put yourself in position to make a run to the finish line and a possible win is what all drivers will have on their minds.
However, the variables are many.
“As far as where you want to be, I think it depends on who is behind you, how many cars are left, how the lanes are formed,” Harvick said. “Are they two wide or three wide? Are they single file? You have to guess which lanes will have the biggest runs and you try to block them as they’re coming. As we saw at Daytona, Aric (Almirola) made a move, Austin (Dillon) made a move, Aric wound up wrecked and Austin won.
“Sometimes that’s just how it works out. But, we’ve also seen Brad and Joey (Logano) be leading in a lot of these races and be able to hold them off, and (Ricky) Stenhouse did the same thing last year. So, circumstances will definitely play out. I think you adapt your strategy from there.”
