Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Pit Stop: Kevin Harvick reacts to Chase Elliott win at Texas

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Join NASCAR legend Kevin Harvick alongside Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith on “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour” presented by NASCAR on FOX as the crew breaks down Chase Elliot’s win at Texas Motor Speedway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

But Chase Elliott was the man who was able to get it done, ending a big long winless streak. We saw a very aggressive, determined Chase Elliott on Sunday. And that's what won in the race. He was as aggressive as I've ever seen him race, especially over the last couple of years. That's as aggressive as I've seen him be over the last couple years for sure. He managed to gain a lot of spots on the restarts, put himself in position, because that's really, when I look at Chase and you see the one wrecking back, there, but Chase and Ross Chastain, they were the two guys that I thought were the most aggressive

on the restarts, and they were also the two guys that stayed up front the most during the day. So, huge win for Chase Elliott, huge win for our sport. Super happy for Chase. I mean, we all need Chase Elliott to be successful. And I think sometimes he feels that pressure, and I would assume that it probably weighs on him a little bit. And he's had a ton of things that have weighed on him really over the last couple years with his injury, getting suspended, switching to the new car, having to answer all the questions about what is it? And him openly saying, hey, this car has presented some new challenges to me. But the thing that I love about this particular situation is the fact that there's no crew chief change.

Right. There's no team change. It was just, hey, we're going to work through this and we're going to figure out what it takes to get you through this. And I think everybody knows that Chase Elliott has the ability to drive a race car fast. And this really, to me, you know, I think this situation really shows how difficult, not only this car is to drive, obviously he can drive this car too. He can win in this car and do what he needs to do. But there's a mental side to this sport that is something that not everybody understands and looks at. And, you know, there's a circle of life that goes through being successful in this sport.

If you want to be successful in anything that you do to the ultimate level, you have to have your stuff together with your team, your stuff together with your personal life, your stuff together with your finances, whatever that is, you have to have all that in line. And when you see this, you saw this with Chase, I think, you know, when all that stuff was unbalanced and Chase and whatever you think the current problem is, whatever you think the next problem is, it's always you're chasing to figure out, okay, what do I have to do here? And I think he's just been, everything has been unbalanced for Chase over the last couple of years because of all the other things outside of racing that he's had to deal with. So hopefully this kind of sets that path forward for those guys.

I'm, you guys have heard me say this before. I'm a huge Alan Gustafson fan. And I think that he is a great person to be in there with Chase navigating in this situation because he's super aggressive. but he's also a guy that understands how this works. So he's going to push Chase to the max, and I think that's what Chase needs to kind of have that kick in the butt every once in a while. And I think Alan and Chase are a great combination.

So I'm happy that when the streak is over. I'm happy for Chase. I'm happy for Alan and Hendrick Motorsports, but I'm really happy for Chase because I hope this just lets him take a deep breath and say, yes. Okay. Now we can reset. reset, go forward, and I can just do what I do.

And the Polish victory lap, and he talked about the connection with Alan Kulicki and Hooters, the sponsor, obviously. That was really neat to see and hear his kind of emotions on that. Yeah, I wasn't really connecting the dots at the beginning because usually he burns it down. Like, the only guy that doesn't burn it down most of the time is Blaney, right? And so Chase is doing this lap and I'm like, he's going really slow. He's just supposed to be really taking this whole moment in, right? And then he gets out and explains the connection.

with Alan Quirickey and, you know, his dad, them racing for that 92 championship, Alan beating him. And now Hooters finally going back to Victory Lane. So that was super cool. And I always like to see that tradition connected. And you were talking about Chase going to work. Like he's the old car was his type of car. Similar like, you know, Jimmy Johnson and Kyle Bush. And you can see some of these guys that have struggled.

Well, Chase's struggle has been not as much seat time as everyone else. also having a rehab and race at the same time in a new car. So to see him get this win is huge. He wasn't running all that great, right, up until this year. Like last year was kind of hit or miss. So if I'm just to get it and get it out of the way, like, okay, they're kind of like here again. Like, they'll be all right. Well, and, you know, I think that you mentioned the old car.

And everything that you could do in the old car, it was just like clockwork, man. Yeah. Once you had it, you had it. knew what you were looking for, you knew the feel which you were looking for. This car, you chased the feel. I mean, as you saw this weekend, you're constantly on edge. And it's, it's not always fun to drive because of how hard it is to drive in these types of situations like this weekend. So in order to get comfortable and do the things that you need to do, you have to understand what you're dealing with. And that's why, like when you go back to the Jimmy Johnson

scenario, he's just not in tune with what's happening to keep up with the craziness of how hard this car is to drive. So getting out of that cycle of, you know, you talk about Kyle Bush and talk about Chase Elliott, I think both of them had a very good feel for what they wanted in the car. That lingo is not any good anymore. It's not the same feel. It's not the same stuff. You can't just, every week is a new week with the evolution of the car and the changing of the rules and the changing of the tires and you're constantly learning. So it's just a constant grind of having to be in there and have those four-hour meetings, team meetings and engineering meetings

and simulator time. It's a lot of work. The 42 race, winless streak is snapped. Can you speak to that, though, what that is like for a driver when you're maybe starting to have doubts? Like, can I still do this?

Can I find Victory Lane again? Yeah. And that part's tough because you don't really do anything different. And, you know, I think in Chase's scenario here, he had a lot of things going on outside of the race car that he had to deal with that were definitely a distraction.

not intended to be a distraction, but it just, you wind up, you just have to deal with it. Hey, race fans, thanks for watching our video for all NASCAR on Fox News, content, and the best clips from Fox Sports. Be sure to follow and subscribe to our channel.