BRISTOL, Tenn. – NASCAR champion Kevin Harvick says he encouraged Stewart-Haas Racing to hire Kyle Busch because he knew the talented driver who has won 224 races across NASCAR’s three national series could help the team.

However, Harvick realized the situation involved more than simply hiring Busch because the Las Vegas native’s deal also involved his NASCAR Truck team.

“Kyle’s situation is complicated, more than most with his trucks and everything that goes into that with the manufacturer and things like that,” Harvick said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway.  

 Still, Harvick thought SHR should have been “way more aggressive” in its efforts to get Busch to join the Kannapolis-N.C.-based team. That if it had been up to him, he would have been “ultra-aggressive” in trying to make it happen. 

“He’s very knowledgeable,” Harvick said about Busch.

Harvick also noted that Busch and Childress share the same passion – winning. 

“Richard (Childress) loves to win,” Harvick continued. “Even when Kyle finishes second, he’s mad and that’s very Richard Childress. Richard may do a better job at covering it up and talking about it, but Richard Childress is a hardcore racer. He has no intention to do anything else other than to win and I think the move he just made shows you that.” 

Harvick made his Busch Series (now Xfinity) debut with Richard Childress Racing in 1999. After Dale Earnhardt’s death in the 2001 Daytona 500, Childress named Harvick to succeed Earnhardt as his Cup driver while also competing for the Busch Series championship. Harvick earned the championship that season and finished ninth in the Cup standings. He remained with RCR through 2013. Harvick has been with SHR since 2014. 

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Kyle Busch said Friday that he still hasn’t finalized everything for next year for Kyle Busch Motorsports, his entry in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

“There’s a few options on the table, but those options are getting swallowed up by other teams,” Busch said. “We’ve got to act and act fast.”

KBM’s current drivers are under contract to Toyota until the end of the year; however, there’s a possibility he could keep them if he can quickly get some things finalized with Chevrolet. 

“If you’ve got an opportunity with drivers that are at current teams right now, and you give them something that interests them they might jump ship,” Busch said. “I don’t have anything to offer them at the current moment. So, we’re still working through that.”

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Chase Elliott said Friday that when he was a child the track’s fall night race was one of those events that was “larger than life.”

“You couldn’t get a ticket for this thing for five years,” Elliott recalled. “It was just one of those events that everyone wanted to be at and if you weren’t there or you weren’t talking about it in the early 2000s, you weren’t living. 

“When I look back at this event and what I remember of it, this was one of the races that made me want to be a race car driver. The environment here is unmatched and this event is special. I don’t see another date or track on our schedule that can rival what this environment is on Saturday night in August or September.”

 

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