Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - William Byron wins Daytona 500, Weekend Recap, and Kevin’s stories from winning at Atlanta Motor Speedway!

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Welcome to “Harvick’s Happy Hour” – your go-to podcast for all things NASCAR! In our debut episode, NASCAR Legend Kevin Harvick sits down with co-hosts Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith to give you the ultimate weekend recap of the Daytona 500. To start, they discuss William Bryon’s Daytona 500 victory, the highs and lows of the race and dive into what’s in store for the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Kevin shares his insider insights on the track, including a breakdown of his impressive 3 Cup Series wins at Atlanta Motor Speedway. But that’s not all – get ready for some exclusive content as Mamba delves into Kevin’s recent experience flying in a fighter jet. He also touches on what happened between Bubba Wallace & Rajah Caruth at the Daytona 500. Tune in for an action-packed episode filled with expert analysis and all the excitement you crave from the world of NASCAR!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR on Fox. I'm with Caitlin Vincy, Mamba Smith. Not sure how he got here, but he's here. Already. Right off the bat. We've got to start out how it's going to be. I want everyone know how this relationship is. That's right.

Well, he didn't waste any time. I like it. But we're excited that you're here. And we want to make sure everyone follows us on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, anywhere you find your podcasts at Harvick Happy Pod. And you know what's funny, if anyone was, following the Harvick Happy Pot account, it had three followers before we announced. And so it would have been very obvious to put these pieces together. Yeah, if you were paying attention,

it wasn't, yeah, you could have kind of pieced it. It was not bad. Well, the good news is we were very enthusiastic about what we were getting ready to do. So this all happened in about, let's just say two weeks. So this all came together pretty quick. But I'm excited because of the fact that we get to jump in and dive in a little bit further into the race weekends as we get on TV, you can only cover so much. I learned really quickly that you can't cover everything. So being able to dive in a little bit deeper into the weekend and explain some of the things that have happened throughout the weekend to me is fun. So just put your thinking cap on.

That's right. It's going to be okay. Put the caps on. Yeah, so we're talking racing, but I know you want to have obviously guests joining you throughout the course of the season two. And you've got quite the Rolodex, I would say, of people to pull from. We've had fun with this before. And we were interviewing the Rock this weekend on the pre-race. show and I was thinking back and I'm like, oh man, who was the interview that we did,

that the car had a hole in the floorboard. And so we asked the rock about his first car. And he had a great story on the pre-race show. And I was thinking back, it was Michael Irvin. So Michael Irvin had this great story about his first car. I don't remember what kind of car it was. The main portion of the story that he told was his car had a hole in the floorboard. It had rusted out.

And he had taken what soon would be his wife on their first. date and her shoe fell out of the floor. Oh, no. That's horrible. When we have guests on that are outside of the racing world and we're able to ask questions, it's always fun to ask them what their first car was because most of us had a piece of crap. That's a good one. The driving experience is always fun to, like, some people really are not good drivers. Not good. They're not good. Yeah. That's why he's here. I would qualify. Wow. Oh, wow. Wow. We've like two within maybe two minutes. I'm trying to make sure that you're ready. I'm trying to make sure that you're ready.

I'm ready to go. Oh, man. Fire away. Let's go. You like my shoes? I wouldn't got a new pair just for you. One of those Brooks? Those are Brooks.

Yeah, he was educating me on his socks too earlier. Those are not shoes. These are these? Those are more like slippers. No, these are the NASCAR. The NASCAR crocks, yeah. Okay, that doesn't make them, that doesn't make them not crocs. It does make them awesome, though.

They're fast. We're definitely from two different generations. Oh, maybe three apart. Yeah. Yeah. I'm probably old enough to be your grandpa. You said you were here for the cool. factor. I'll be 32. 32. I'm not. You're older than I thought you were.

I look good, huh? Yeah. Look good for 32. But anyway. It's going to be fun, guys. I'm really excited. And you talked about it. The fact that we get to do a deep dive into racing, which of course, our biggest race of the whole year just happened over the weekend. Great American Race, Daytona 500. Your first race in the booth, I might add, for the 500, which, how was it? It was, it was way more intense than I thought it was going to be. And we got to the dual. We got to the dual. And the worst part for me is the lineup. I stress out more about the lineup and reading the lineup than I do anything else. And for whatever reason, that's the most structure part of the whole show. And on race day, my compadre, Clint Boyer came in drinking a Red Bull.

And I'm like, oh, my God. He does not need that. We are completely screwed here because of the fact this guy is already super hyper. And now he's, by the time we got through the opening segment, I had to tell him, I said, dude, you got to, you got to back up, get out of my space. He was literally standing right here. speaking to Mike and I'm like, I'm here, buddy, I'm here. Imagine that. And please just stay in your space. He gets excited. He does get dressed over into your space.

Exactly. I feel for you. Gotta keep it on his lane. But it was good. Clint and Mike and really everybody have been super helpful and everything that has happened and gone on. We've sat on 270 Zoom calls and meetings that we've been into so far. So if we didn't have it down by the time we got on on the air. We were in big trouble. So it went, I thought it went well. I mean, obviously there are a lot of things that need to get better at and understand. But for the most part, I think it went, I think it went pretty smooth. Yeah, you were great. You did a great job. Yeah, I thought, it's a big moment. Call on Day 21, 500. Well, at one point, I heard you saying, like, you could

sense this sensation of speed through the cameras and stuff. And it's just interesting when you've obviously been in the driver's seat all those years for that race to be on the other side of the glass. I did get tired at the end of the second stage. You did. Maybe he's right. I'm just kidding. He called me Grandpa. But it was a different rush.

For me, I still, when you hear the pre-race and you hear everything that comes with what they put together and the excitement that goes with everything that is going on the air and you realize, like I got, I kind of got jacked up. It made the hair stand up on my arms. And then we came on the air and I was pretty pumped up to be there. and when they were coming to the green flag and the crowd stands up and you're able to feel that feeling of the crowd being excited and all of a sudden the cars start to go through the gears and you feel the roar of the cars and the pitch of the engine start to pick up and then they come by.

And to me, one of the coolest parts is the first lap after the restarts when the cars are all still really packed up and they're all 100% throttle and really going. But when that pack comes by, you can feel the ground rumbling and people, the cars coming before they even get there and then they go by and it's like do do do do do do

do. Can you give me that one time? I practiced that my whole life. Yeah. I can't I can only do it on the fly. I have an 11 year old I have an 11 year old boy so you got to be able to make some race car sounds. Yeah, that's true. I watched it. So I watched pre-race on the ground.

Yeah. And the Thunderbirds, I think they're getting lower and lower. Oh, for sure. I think they're trying to ring the bell at the tower because they are rolling. You can see dust. It feels like dust is flying around when they go by. It's badass. There's nothing quite like it.

Here it is, obviously, very cool part of the pre-race and all the pomp and circumstance. You were out there for your other job, Chief hype. Yeah, yeah. The crowd looked awesome, even though it was Monday.

It was a great crowd. It was packed, right? It was packed out. I'd say 85% easily, if not 90. Who is the biggest dork that walked across the stage this week? It used to be you, so thank you. He had to get one in there to you

You're two for one. That's fair. Honestly, I didn't do the driver intro, so I wasn't up there. So I can't even give a dig at anybody. I didn't know what they were doing. Well, that's unfortunate. I was pre-raised. Are you going to start this week?

I start in Phoenix. In Phoenix. Yeah, I start in Phoenix. We should start making that like a segment though. Every week, we're like, who was the dork this week? Yeah. I'll give you. Every week we expect to check in on the dork scale.

Did you go find any good spots? Anything fun? Anything fun? Yeah. Yeah, we did a surprise in the campground. And so he took, it was me and Holsavar. And we were bouncing around and they don't know where to go, right? Like, Hulsar is not, they don't know where the fun spots are.

Yeah. I've been to Daytona for a little while. Yeah. So we took them to, you know, the Red 38 lot, which is a nice, nice little bar. They have, like, started with one, one slot. Now they got three. And then there was a tiki bar over in turn three and four. A tiki bar.

Yeah, yeah, that was cool. I made, I went from the TV compound of the booth to the infield. That's it? Dang. You missed out, man. I know. Listen, these guys rented four U-Haul vans and attached this, like, wood on top to make a stage. And then they were, like, sleeping in them and...

Wow. ...allows impressive. ...allowsupport mattresses. Did you go to Ocean Deck? I didn't go to Ocean Deck. Classic spot. That's where you almost broke my nose. I know.

Wait, I'm sorry, what? You almost broke her nose? It was purely accident. It was actually pretty funny. Oh, sure. I had a hat on. It was a flat brim. He, like, tapped it down.

Flip your buddy's hats. He flipped it down just to say hey to me, but it hit it just right and starts bleeding. I'm like, um. Purely an accident. Kevin's going to have to pay for a nose job. Unreal. Real nice guy. Sometimes I don't know my own strength.

Classic. What do you guys tell me? Old man string. Oh, man, strange. Yeah, once you have 40, it changes. I got you. You just get stronger. Yeah, for no reason.

You don't look strong. You're just strong. Yeah, for no reason. Thank you. We heard he had an active weekend on Raya or whatever. Yeah. Well, before the show, I really didn't understand that there was a, thing called Raya that exists.

So, but I'm, I'm, I'm happy to use that, did you have you used Tinder? Because that was the only thing that I knew that was relevant to Raya. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So did you, did you find a date? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it was a good, I mean, we had a lot of downtime. So when we went to dinner, um, this nice, uh, hibachi spot. Oh. And, uh, it was good. So are you looking for another date or is that, was that, was that just, was that one or or two dates?

Or can, can, it? Is it okay to have, have we, do we like click a box on riot? Let's get. We're going to date multiple people. I know that you, I know that you have been out of the game for, but, you know, this is casual. We're just seeing who's out there, you know, and trying to make new connections. Is this a one-sided agreement?

Is this how you understand the agreement or is this a mutual thing that everybody's talked about? I mean, I think both parties know, like, what's going on. I'm a very classic man. Classic guy. Well, let's talk racing. Yeah, let's talk racing. I'm glad you guys had fun out there. William Byron had a lot of fun.

And what a cool driver to watch the evolution of his career, right? He said it post-race. Like, I started out doing eye racing. We saw what he was able to do in trucks. Now he's that guy. Every week he's a front. For those of you that don't know about William Byron, William Byron was learned how to race on eye racing.

And irising is obviously way more realistic than what it ever has been and the folks at eye racing do a great job. But going from eye racing to legend cars to late models all the way through the truck series and Xfinity series and Cup series, that's been William Byron's progression. Most kids start in go-carts and legend cars. But William comes from a great family. His dad is a very intelligent man that is very sharp with everything and very calculated with everything that he does.

And he put William in a lot of great spots. But William is a hardworking kid. And I talked to Rudy Fugel at the clash. And I asked him, I said, do you realize how fortunate you are to have a kid like William Byron that works as hard as he does at everything that he does?

Because it's not that way for everybody in the garage. And I think William's work ethic and the people that he has around him with his family and Rick Hendrick and Rudy, and all the people at Hendrick Motorsports, he's just blossoming right in front of our eyes. You look at last year, he won six races, comes out of this year,

wins the Daytona 500, and I think he's going to have another year where he wins, five, six, seven races. And because I just, I don't see them being any weaker than they were last year. They don't have a body change. They don't have to worry about the balance of the car.

They could win a handful of races pretty quick in the first part of the year. To your point with Rudy Fugel, they were paired together when he had all that success in the Craftsman Truck Series. And that chemistry is so solid between the two of them

and what Kevin was saying, they pretty much picked up right where they left off last season. Are they already, what do you say? Favorite for the... Yeah. I would definitely have the 24 in your final four.

And usually I don't like to pick that that early, but like he's, he's different. He's ready. Like Max Pappas, I used to work at MP. And Max told me a couple years ago that there was a switch that had been changed. He was ready to make that jump. And last year we saw it was the six wins.

This year, he's starting out with a 500 win. He has a little bit of swagger. He does. He's got that 24th swagger. I told him we texted last night. I said, man, congratulations. He said, unreal. I can't believe it.

I said, I can. I said, dude, you're worthy of the car number. Like, because it's different, right? The iconic numbers you kind of got to grow into. Like, obviously, Kevin, you, you're taking over the. the Goodrich Chevrolet is kind of a similar situation. So like, it's a little bit of imposter syndrome, I'm sure, for a little bit. And then now he's kind of there.

Well, and the one thing that I find really interesting about all of a lot of these young kids, and you've heard Bubba talk about it. You've heard Blaney talk about it. I haven't heard William talk about it, but is the confidence. They talk about the lack of confidence. And when I go back and think about just the magnitude of things that happen in this sport, and the things that you experience and the pressure that is put on you. I was 25 when I started.

A lot of these kids are 19, 20 years old when they're getting into the cup series. And you just, you can't explain to people what it's like to have to experience the week-to-week pressure of trying to make your car go fast, the questions that come when the performance isn't good or you make a mistake. And being able to let that go is something that I really see in William. because of the fact that I think he's matured, but I also think he's not dwelling on what somebody says, what a situation that has happened. If you make a mistake, just move on and go to the next week.

Because by the time you get to Monday, you have to be working on next week in order to be prepared. And if you're dwelling on something that a reporter said or something that a competitor said, sure, you want to have as few problems as possible because of the fact that you don't want to be fighting battles all the way through the year. And that's not William's nature.

But I think it was almost the opposite with him. I think he needed to be a little more aggressive and stand his ground. But I think he's comfortable with all of that. You can hear it when he talks. Chase Elliott, same thing this weekend. When I heard him go into an interview this weekend, I'm like, oh, he's a little different. He's ready for the year. The way he speaks and his demeanor and the way that he talks and how comfortable he looked,

it felt like Chase Elliott was ready. But that's what I see in William. And I think, as Chase Elliott said, in his interview, I think William is in that equation and conversation every single week, no matter the racetrack, of being able to win there. What's interesting about William, too, is I feel like he's been like that for a while. I remember when I was pit road reporting for trucks, and they had their engine expired at Taudega, and it took them out of the championship hunt, right?

Yeah. Such a heartbreak for him. But even when he was so much younger, he already handled the media so well, the setback so well. Like, he's already had that mentality. And I do think a lot of it goes back to the people around you, his mom and dad, his friends, his core group of people that's around him. So William Byron, he might be the guy once again this year. And the crazy part, the crazy part about this Daytona 500, yeah, William and Alex Bowman were in the mix. But really those two guys, them getting together and causing the wreck, that was really what wiped out all the cars.

Those guys actually made it through the wreck and were able to put themselves in a better position once all the the cars were wiped out because they made it through there and were able to win the race and capitalize on it. But that's how those, that's how these Speedway races are now. Joey Legano controlled the race all day. I felt like he was in control most of the day of doing what he needed to do for his particular team and Ford. And no matter where they were, he found us way back to the front. They were able to position themselves to save gas. That all, that all changed like that. And he was running second, third. Yeah. And, um, So we saw it happen throughout the duels.

We saw it happen at the beginning of the race. We saw it in different situations. And when you get down to the end of the Daytona 500, there isn't anybody who cares about anything. They're all going to do whatever they have to do to try to win and they don't care about wiping their car out. They don't care about wiping the next guy out. And the pushes just kept getting harder and harder and harder. And as soon as those cars become misaligned a little bit, it starts to, when those big pushes like that need to, shubs them off and off. So I thought something was funny.

Lugano was controlling the race. Todd Gillian was on the bottom. So Lugano felt like they were both in a good spot. And Todd moves to the top. Lugano keys up the radio. He's like, what is he doing? You got mad at Todd for moving to the top. And I think that's funny.

Like, when you were younger, and I feel like the way you guys control the races now is different than it was before. Like before I felt like Super Speedway, you guys were just like kind of going and no one really had a real strategy. except maybe Earnhardt did. That was about it.

But now it's like, no, I want to control this because I want to do this. Yeah. And what happened in that particular moment with Joey and Todd Gillen was, Joey felt like they were controlling the throttle position and the saving at that particular point because they had everything jammed up. On the radio during the broadcast, Todd said, I wanted to move up because I felt like I couldn't trust any of the guys behind me

and I needed to put myself in a position where they weren't going to put me three wide. And Joey didn't really have all that information. But I agree with Todd. They weren't going to put him three wide when he was in the top. And it wound up, it wound up being everybody together there from the Ford camp to be able to put themselves in a position to still do the same thing. But Joey was not in control. Yeah, yeah. I feel like they like being in control. Yeah. So we saw a number of big wrecks, the one towards the tail into the race being the biggest of the day. What goes through your mind? Like, can you feel it when it's about to go down when these accidents are like on the precipice of happening when you're in the car. Can you sense it?

Okay. First off, I don't know that I don't know that we should use those words with the intelligence level of these two up on the state. Presapest? That's a pretty big word for me. Is that an SAT word? Don't act like you know. I know exactly what it means. Yeah. On the edge. It's like right there. It's like right there. I got it. But listen, I'm educated in California. Calm down. I just never. I just All right. But you get what I'm asking. What do you say? You spell it? No. sounds like a dinosaur. That's what it sounds like. It does actually. I'll never think of that word the same. So I've lost my train of thought here. What were we? I was trying to ask you if in those moments, we were just looking at that big accident towards. Yeah. So at the end, you, you definitely

could feel that it was just a matter of when it was going to happen. They were three wide pushing and shoving and you just didn't know when it was actually going to happen. They tried, they tried several times as we led up to the actual race. itself, but I think it wiped out 18 cars. A lot of the good cars that were up in the front. And there was actually, 18 was actually probably a lower number than it looked like on television because we had multiple in-car cameras and a lot of big shots. And when you look at these in-car shots and you see the driver's head start to whip forward, a lot of the bigger shots come from getting hit from the back of the car and the whiplash that actually comes with the rear impact. But, man,

there were some big, big hits. Some sore bodies. Yeah. And the sourced one is going to be Ryan Blaney. Oh, for sure. When you look at Ryan Blaney, he had two massive shots. He had one that was, the one in the duels was 55 G's, right front, almost head-on. And then you look in the race, he had another big shot.

So Ryan Blaney cannot wait for Daytona. He could not wait to leave out of that Daytona tunnel because he had a bad week. He did win a stage, had two massive wrecks, mad at his team. He was feisty on the radio. Very feisty on the radio. He was not happy at all with Austin Cendrick, and he point blank said, I am not helping my teammates anymore. And the first chance he got, and he went right by Austin Cendrick to win the stage.

So he was definitely feisty on the radio. I haven't been around this as much as you guys. That really surprises me how feisty he is on the radio. He is a gangster on the radio, especially like, He's like, recently. Why is he so mad already? He just like ready to go. And he's just mad.

I think he feels like he's the guy. Like, he's the champ, right? He's the reigned champ. So I feel like he feels more confident in all this stuff and he knows what he wants. And the guys around him, like, don't give him the respect that I think you first think. Yeah. And Timmy Feedo is my old spot. Yeah, so he's okay with that.

I would yell every once in a while, but I didn't yell much on the radio. I did not yell. Really? Not in the, not in the SHR days. Okay, not at SHR. Yeah. Yeah, SHR days were, SHR days were pretty mellow for Timmy. So that, you know, Timmy Feetwe is Ryan Blaney's new spotter.

So there is definitely a period there to where they're having to get to know each other. But they got to know each other a lot better this weekend. They sure did. On the flip side of that, we're talking about Ryan Blaney being fired up. Kyle Bush, shockingly not. What did you think about his day even with some hardships thrown into the mix? Yeah. And Kyle Bush, I've found this out in my interview, which you'll see on Thursday with Kyle.

Bush, when we did that interview on Thursday, it was very mellow. And that carried over to the radio this weekend. He was, even after he wrecked in the duels, his interview, he didn't get, he wasn't short, he was mad, you could tell, but he gave an interview, stayed calm and didn't, didn't get defensive or mad or just act like a baby. Baby? Baby. Do you know that word? Yeah, I can even spell that one. So, but during the, during the duels, after the duels, I told Clint and Mike, I said, wow, that was, I was surprised. Yeah. And that was very much just like the interview that I did with Kyle before the season started.

Which was great. And when he, when he had everything happened in the 500, I think he knew how fast his car was because Kyle Busch had one of the best cars all day. He was able to drive from the back every time they screwed something up and drive back. to the front and was in contention late before everything, everything went down. But his, his last pit stop that he had the wheel almost fall off, going through and staying calm in that particular moment, the wheel didn't come off. There were no penalties. He got back to pit road and got right back into the front. And I think that will, I think that'll pay dividends for Kyle as he goes through the year. If he can maintain that demeanor and be dangerous for everyone's

leader of that particular team and use his skills to be beneficial like he needs to, he's going to be successful this year. I wanted to ask you guys about a very familiar face that was out there this weekend, of course, Jimmy Johnson and the duels and the emotions of his day and his daughter was there, of course. Would you guys think about that? Man. I go bad for him.

I'll tell you that. So Jimmy Johnson was not in the race. He had to race his way into the field. So there were four cars that had to race their way into the field. he had to beat one of the cars in the race in the qualifying race. And coming to the end of pit road, from the end of pit road to the start finish line, he made the race because up until that point, he was out of the race. He had a spin earlier in the race, had to come to pit road, got behind.

And some things happened at the end that put him in a position to not be qualified. And he made that up in a very short amount of time. But when he got out of that car, I saw things out of Jimmy Johnson. I have never seen before because he has experienced. experienced seven championships and been on the winning side of a number of things, able to overcome adversity because he knew everything that was behind him, everything that is going on. Now, he's on the flip side of things on the team ownership side, responsible for all these sponsors. And you heard it in his interview after the race that he was thinking, oh, my God,

I got to go up to these suites and I got to stand in front of all these people. And I got to tell them why we did not make the biggest race of the year at the Daytona 500 after we've just told them how great we were. But that didn't shock me the most. The thing that shocked me the most was the emotion. And just you could tell that the anxiety of the situation. And he had a tough time talking. And to see that emotion out of Jimmy Johnson was something that we had all seen before. And he's in a much different position. He went away to race Indy cars and tried to learn something new there. Now he's come back on the team ownership side, having to learn

on the business side of things. And for some reason, got back in the race car to be able to go out there and learn a new car. Yes. It's like he is all about the challenge and stepping outside of that box to do things that are just not supposed to be done. I just

want him to have a clean weekend. Yes. Like when he ran Kota wasn't clean last year. Like he got three laps, I think, or lap one and they broke something and that was it. I would like for him to be able to just go through a weekend and compete and do all the things and see what happens. That's going to be difficult. That is going to be extremely difficult for him to do because he's got eight races this year.

Most more road courses. Yeah, he's got eight races this year. And with this particular car, it's about rhythm. Like, you have to understand the weekly progression of this car. Get the reps. Get the feel. You have to be able to feel this car because it'll step out and bite you in a hurry. And you won't even know what happened.

And it'll spin out and you'll be thinking to yourself, what the hell just happened? I mean, I'm backed into the fence and driving to pit road and all the tires are flat. But it's a massively different car than what he drove before and had all the success in. You've got to retrain your brain. You've got to retrain your brain to be able to do the things that this particular car wants. So it's going to take a lot of time and not getting those reps on a weekly basis is going to put him at a disadvantage every time he gets in it. Last year I went to Kevin's house to hang out for dinner and he was in his office. He had a table.

No, not the Ricky Bobby house, the other house. He had the desk that was about as wide as we are sitting here and had paper strewed all the car. I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, man, I got to do these notes. You got to get his car better. Studying. It's out of control. It's a full-time job.

At a control. And when you get your responsibility as a driver, I mean, you're a part of the equation. You're not the whole equation by any means, but you are really the root of the equation. to be able to say, hey, this work, that didn't work. And you have to be pretty precise about where the car is screwed up, help them be able to pinpoint, you know, is it the rack quickness, is it the air pressure, is it the right rear spring?

You know, what exactly are you feeling here is that the balance of the race car because the small increments that it takes to be successful with this particular car are much smaller than they used to be. And that all comes from communication and doing the things that it takes on a, a weekly basis. So that starts Sunday night or Monday morning with your notes that go directly to the crew chief, the conversations that happen in the competition meeting once you get your other

teammates together. A lot of the manufacturers meet together and have those meetings. And by Wednesday, you're back in the simulator working on the next week and trying to figure out what you need in the car going forward in order to make the car run fast. So the process and the time that it takes to do all that. Not doing it every week and leading with that progression every single week. Huge disadvantage. Well, you mentioned the preparation for the drivers. Up next is Atlanta.

Daytona 500 is over. We're moving on to the next race. No stranger to Victory Lane there for you, Kevin. Well, this is, you know, Atlanta for me has been obviously a place that is really special because it was my first win when Dale died in 2001. that was actually supposed to be the place that I made my Cup Series debut. So we had tested there and practiced and done all the things in preparation for my first Cup Series attempt to start the race and going back there and being able to win our first race.

And so Atlanta has always been a pretty special place to me. And really a career changer because that was one of those moments that could have been off the deep end bad for me if we didn't go out and take. perform because the new would have worn off pretty quick in that situation, no matter the circumstances, if you weren't performing well. So to go out in our third start, win the race under those circumstances, I don't remember much. It was all a very confusing time because of the fact that you didn't know whether to get out of that car and be happy. You didn't know whether you should be sad. But it was your first win. You're there with a team that you're fairly new with. I knew most of the guys because of

the fact that I did a lot of the testing for Dale in 2000. So it was a very confusing time. The week before, my wife and I, Delana, got married in Las Vegas. That was on the documentary. Did you know they got married in Vegas? I didn't know. I didn't know. I actually didn't know you guys got married in Vegas. Because people always joke, like, let's get married in Vegas. They actually did it. It was a neutral site. I love that. Yeah, it was a neutral site. My family was from California. Her family liked going to the races. The team was already going to be there. And honestly, it worked out to be really a, kind of a healing moment for everybody on the team, everybody within RCR, to be able to get away

from North Carolina. Gather together. Gather together. We had the wedding. Everybody was together having a good time on a Wednesday before the race weekend. So it got us out of North Carolina a couple days sooner than we were supposed to be there. And really, that was the first weekend that I got my first top 10. And we came home and won the next week.

So there were a lot of things that were already planned. and the wedding was just one of those moments. How old are you then? How old was it? 25. Okay. So at 25, you step in to that, right? I think of like the guys now, like the Harrisons and the Todd Gillins, they're so young.

You got to, they're going from being kids to leading a group of men because you are the driver. Like, this thing runs off of you. It's like being the quarterback of your franchise, a franchise player. Like, that's going to be. And this goes so much heavier for other reasons. A lot. Yeah. To step into that.

It was, but I mean, there's still a lot of pressure on the drivers today and the young kids that come into the sport because it's much more, it's much more in depth from a preparation standpoint, from a pressure standpoint. And it's much more public. Everything you do is much more public than it used to be from a social media standpoint during the week, right? You're expected to document the things that you do and talk about the things that you've got to do different things than what we had to do. do then. And we hid most of 2001. We hid from everything because we were still racing the Bush series at the time. So we were able to go test the Bush Series car. We were able to go test the Cup Series car. We were going to do tire tests. We were going early to the racetrack to be able to get in the bush car, to get in the cup car. Whatever it was, we spent the majority of the time in the race car my first year.

And I felt like they just let us get away with it. We were able to not do a ton of appearances, not have to be exploited because we were already being exploited enough. I got home from Atlanta and learned really quickly that life had changed when I had a yard full of people waiting for you to drive into your driveway at your house. Very strange. So, you know, I think that the magnitude of the things that were happening at that time were higher, but it's just different now. Sure, it's not as popular as it was then, but it's a different, it's a different kind of popular now.

with social media and all the things that come with all the exposure that you get. But it's a lot of pressure to be able to put on these young kids. And when they are able to get all the things that they've always wanted, whether it's money and you don't even have to go on. Raya. Raya. You don't have to go on Raya anymore to get a date. There are a lot of things that just happen naturally.

It don't have to go on Raya. It's just a nice place to go. Okay. I got you. But my point is they've got everything in front of them that they need, everything that they've always wanted. And sometimes they lose focus of why they got there and how they got there. And they work, work, work, work.

And then they get to that prize and win a race. And all of a sudden they disappear for a few months or six months or a year. And because of the fact that they're focused on everything that they shouldn't be focused on. But it's a it's a dedication to be able. to go and say, I'm going to be committed to this team and I'm going to do all the things that I'm supposed to do and not have fun because that's just not what a 22-year-old kid is going to do. Right. Yeah.

So you got that win. Then you got two more at Atlanta. How were you able to just seem to mesh with that place? What was it about it that you liked or that came to you? It took a long time to get that second win. But Atlanta was always a place that we dominated in the cup car and Bush car, Exfinity car, for a long time. Really, no matter what we drove, it was always a race where we were. We let a lot of laps.

And I always seemed like there was just this weird late race caution that would come out. And we would wind up losing the race. So from 2001 to 2018, I never won another cup race there. I mean, think about that. I mean, think about how many cup races we led at that particular race track and how many laps that we led. And we didn't win a race for 17 years. And then we go back in 2018. It was fun to be able to go and go back to Atlanta and win and enjoy it.

And remember some of the memories that came with 2001. and be able to actually enjoy driving to victory lane and driving around the track backwards and thinking about back to 2001 and then we won again in 2020. So it's been, you can't take that first away. It's always that that first win is the only time you'll ever do that and it happened to come under some pretty extreme circumstances.

I don't think the Harvick line applies anymore. What's that? The Harvick line, you're lying around Atlanta does not apply anymore. I think it's different? Yeah, I think it's a little different. Yeah, it's a little different. Tell us why. Well, I mean, the track's different, Kevin, you know?

So why would, you know, you're older, it's new. It doesn't mesh. Yeah. No, it's drastically different. We race with our super speedway package. So everything that you saw at Daytona last week. Replicate it. And it's just, it's on fast forward.

It's quicker, right? It's way quicker. Yeah. This is the most intense thing I've ever done in a race car in recent years. because everything at Atlanta now happens at a super high rate of speed. The cars are not comfortable to drive. They feel like they're up on top of the racetrack. You have to race in a pack.

You have to take as much speed out of the car, put as much speed in the car as possible and still make it handle. We talk about having a little bit of handling at Daytona. You better have a lot of handling at Atlanta because there's bumps. You're up on top of the racetrack. The car's not feeling good at any point. And it's just a, it's a weird place to drive. And now they've added this super speedway element to go with it.

And it just makes it extremely difficult. So do we think similar names rising to the occasion that we saw in Daytona for Atlanta this weekend? Is that who you're watching? William Byron is won on this package. And I would expect Baba to be good. I would expect Blaney to be good. I don't know if AJ is running. But he actually is running really well in the 500.

So maybe a collie car for a surprise. I'd love to see Harrison Burton. I'd love to see Harrison. Daytona. He's been good at Super Speedways. Yeah. And the one thing that I want to have the questions answered to is how is the new Toyota body and the new Dark Horse, the Ford Dark Horse, going to handle, right? They had a body change, complete body change over the off season. Chevroletes don't have to, they have a good building block for the balance of their race cars and what they had last year. So I think the Ford's and the in the, in the Toyotos will probably start and go off the data that they have to be able to say, hey, let's let's start here based upon what we did. last year and based upon the new data that we have this year, we think we should be able to get

away with this much speed and this much handling. But if they miss, it's going to be a long day. Hold on, boys. You are holding on. Unreal. I mean, last year, I was just cruising along, leading the race. Everything's good. Ross Chastain just give me a little bumps here and there. And I just spun out. He got right to the back bumper of the car and it just lost the back of the race car and spun out. So that's just how edgy that the cars are there. So those two cars, two brands, they definitely are hoping that the balance and all the data that they have is pretty close because if not, it's a hang on boys type situation. So with that, I think that the 24 car, the 548, some of the Chevroletes that were successful there last year, I look for them to be

to be strong again this year. Ross was obviously at the front of the race last year as well. So in the first one anyway. So it'll be interesting. And I know that I am really excited to be standing in the booth watching those maniacs go around the racetrack. That play is, I feel like everyone's like happy that we're doing back-to-back East Coast races. Yeah. Like that's really nice for everybody to kind of get in this season. But it's also back-to-back super speedway races.

It's like, oh, God. Guy like Blaney's like, oh, my God. Are you kidding me? I only have four cars left. So, and that's what his team's thinking as well. So, yeah. And, and those are, those are big hits. There's a lot of guys that took big hits.

And odds are, there's a, I always said it was a 50-50. scenario, you were either going to have a good day or you're going to hit something. So same odds apply this week. Good day or hit something. Yeah, you got good day or hit something. Clint said he always had to trick himself into thinking he was going to win the race. That's what he told him in the booth. He's like, I just told myself I was going to win.

It was going to be fine. Yeah. Well, that didn't work out. It worked great. I mean, a few times. For the most part, it didn't really work that well. But it was an interesting comment that he. Maine. I just had to trick myself. Sometimes,

Mike and I look at each other and we're like, I'm okay. All right. Moving on. Yeah. So it's been awesome. Clint's awesome. Yeah. That's good. That's good. So who's a dark horse pick? You said kind of the main ones you're watching. I'm going to, I'm going to, my dark horse is Corey LaJoy. He ran well there last year. He led laps, kind of crashed. It was in the mix there at the end, almost one at the end. Had a great run at Daytona this week and raced in the front. And I think that, I think they're hungry. And, you know, I think that they have the cars to be able to compete and do what they need to do with the experience and everything that they've had in those moments last year. So,

but these super speedway races are unpredictable. Everybody, they're unpredictable. And that's why everybody thinks that they can be successful at them. Right. So it'll be interesting. I would, whoever came through this week without a bunch of damage, I would, that's where I would start my list. So they can use some of the same stuff. Corey for sure, though. He's, you know, And I think Chase, I feel like Chase, he won in this package against Corey. So I feel like he's trying to win again in Georgia. Well, hopefully he wins it. Hopefully he wins in a week that is somewhat easy for me so that we can,

when we go to the Dawsonville pool room there. This would be the easiest one. This would be. Yeah. Let's make that easy, Chase, if you're listening, just just figure that out. So it's easy travel. So we're not going like West Coast, East Coast. Yeah.

How about Clint was like, I want to ring the bell? Yeah. It was like, what bell? A dork, a dork man. We're ripping on him. As Larry Mac would say, that's a sireen. It's a siren. Everyone's taking shots.

Yeah. Getting strays I hear from everybody. That's right. That's good. Well, we'll have to see how all these early predictions fair when we get out to Atlanta. Well, I was going to say Corey Lajoy too. It's okay. We can agree.

It's all right. It's not a debate show. I would think twice if you would agree with him. I'm definitely not going to disagree with you. I see how this deal is going to work here now. What do you mean? No, it's okay. I thought we were...

You're like the punching bag. Yeah, it's okay. He got the Raya jokes already out of the way. Yeah, everyone come on with it. Is it Raya? Raya. Yeah, okay. The only special people can be on that.

How do you spell that? R-A-Y-A. I could spell baby, but R-A-Y-A. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Got it. All right. Well, now it's your turn to take over.

I know. And tell us all your social media. discoveries over the weekend. So you stayed there the whole time. Yeah. You didn't go home early. You've been out there fully. Well, define going home early.

I'm just kidding. Because I was on... I wanted to make sure I could beat you to the studio. And I still didn't do that. Yeah. You're going to have a hard time beating me. Are you always early? Usually.

Kind of like prompts. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to work on that. I have to use spell checks. He runs a tight ship around here. He runs a tight ship around here. He runs a tight ship.

That's right. That's right. So I did get home. I watched X for any race. But one of the things on social this week. that I loved. Kevin, you, after you've been ripping me for about an hour, I'm going to give you a compliment.

I love it. Come on, unfortunately. Give it to me. You actually looked cool this weekend. Thank you. You looked very cool this weekend. Which part was it? Was it my shoes?

It was the fighter helmet. Oh, yeah. Somebody cue the top gun music, please. Yeah. You were looking solid. Was it with my shield? Shield down. No, shield down.

Yeah, I figured that was. Yeah, I definitely look way. That could be honestly, it could be anyone. That might not be Kevin. Is that why it looks cool? Because we don't know for sure who's under there. It was the, I flew with the Thunderbirds this weekend on Friday. And it was one of the most physically intense activities that I've ever done.

We got to the end of the runway. Yeah, we got to the end of the runway. And the pilot's like, all right, are you ready? Is that how he said it? Yeah. All right. We have the whole thing on video. So, all right.

we are going and okay, we are half throttle. And we're like, we take off and it's like, whoop, we just pop off the ground. I'm like, oh. So, all right, we are full throttle. Okay. You're going to feel the afterburners. And then it was three, two, one, breathe and straight up. I'm like, oh, God.

Oh, God. I'm holding my head up. And I finally just go, I just let it go. I couldn't hold my head up because the Gs were so high that I couldn't. I couldn't literally hold my head. I think I would get sick. Yeah. So from a scale from 1 to 10, the pucker factor was how high on that?

Pucker factor was freaking high. It was pretty as high as it's ever been. That's how high the pucker factor was. We took off straight up. And then when we got to the top of the airspace, we did two twists. And then we flew upside down. And then he's like, all right. Are you still with me back there, Kev?

And I said, yep, I'm still with you. Unreal. All right. That's wild. We're going to fly down to Cape Canaveral, and that took five minutes. So you get your phone out and take some pictures. So I actually flew with, I actually flew with Zane Smith. So we got to do some dog fights and he did his own thing.

But I made it the whole time. I didn't throw up. We got to 9 G's, which was, thank God we touched 9 G's because I was like, stop, stop. I just couldn't talk loud enough for him to hear me. But that was definitely, that was definitely a unique experience. I don't know that. We doing it again? I would not sign up again.

I would like to sign up. You would like to sign up? Okay, we're submitting an office name for this. If you get the opportunity, you should do it because it is a once in a lifetime experience. And they were great. Everybody at Thunderbirds was great. And the thing that I couldn't believe, they let me fly it. They let you fly it?

Yeah, how sensitive the joystick was. Oh, wow. And it was just, I mean, just really so little. It's a lot of pressure. But when it, when you, when you nose down, turn it left, turn it right, it instantly does it. And it is never rough. It never, never any turbulence. Like, it just does it.

It's just like a... I gotta be honest, I don't think I want to fly that. No? No, I don't, I think... You think you get sick? No, I just think that I feel like I might mess it up. Oh, I for sure. Bad enough to where, like, maybe you can't bring it back.

Yeah. And he kept telling, he kept, the pilot kept telling me, he's like, hey, you're going a little fast, just back off. And I guess I was kind of just going downhill a little bit. But I couldn't really tell. It's like, and when you start to get twisted and turning, it does it so easy. If you weren't hanging there, you couldn't, I couldn't really tell where the horizon was and what, what?

was happening because it just, it was so smooth in a way that things would happen, happened so easy that I couldn't keep track of, of where I was or what I was doing. My head's flopping around. I'm trying to hold on. Man, this sounds miserable. I don't know. You're not making a case where we don't want to do this. No, but I mean, it's so intense and you have such a lack of knowledge of what's actually

happening. You're just sitting there. And you don't have any idea how fast you're going because of the fact that until they turn and you fill the G forces. I'm definitely in, but not on the flying part. But speaking of dog fights, that wasn't a dog fight. But in the truck race, Rajah Karuth had a run going and ends up kerosing the rest of the field of rec off for a turn two. That was like rec 27?

Yeah, but this is a big one that ended it, right? And then after social media saw Bubba and Raj having a conversation. Yeah. And it kind of reminded me of Travis Kelsey and Andy Reader. Here's Bubba and Raj shot. It reminded me of Travis Kelsey and Andy Reid talking on the sideline. And then after they're all great. You know what I mean?

So I think this kind of got blown out of proportion a little bit because they're obviously boys. Bubba's like a mentor to Raj. But it was definitely a little bit of a moment there. And you have the backstory on this that in fact he was trying to kind of turn his body away from the cameras, right? Yeah. They were just like having a conversation that they normally have just when you finish in the top five cameras all around. Happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he just turned it so no one could read their lips and they could have a little private conversation. Well, Raj's is, I mean, he was happy. Yeah. Bubba was mad because he felt like he made just a dumb move, right? He just let the truck come up and slam into the side of the other guy. But in all of their, all the truck driver's defense, I think it's time out. Let's take a time out. Rehaul.

We need to make the trucks easier to drive. Like, those things are the edgiest, sketchiest things that are on. the racetrack at all the Super Speedways because of the way that they pull up and how fast they pull up and the way that they handle. I don't know what the answer is to that, but there needs to be something done to the trucks to make them easier to drive and bump and do all the things that they need to do because they are the hardest vehicle to drive on the Super Speedways out of all three series. And those kids are, they don't care. They are hammer down. They're not scared.

You're going to do whatever they have to do. And they're going to bump and they're going to try. If they don't know how to do it, they're just going to try to do it. And I think they just, you know, they're learning, which that's what the truck series is for. But I think we could put them in a better vehicle and a better position to learn by having a vehicle that was, that drove better. Even if it was slower, faster, more down force, they have a ton of down force, better shock springs, something. The combination is just, it needs to be different. So one of the other series was the archimony.

Yeah, yeah. So this is, this is probably my favorite, this is probably my favorite thing that happened on social all week. So Phil Parsons dials up, Andy Joe Koriak. On the broadcast. On the broadcast. Four to go. And Phil's like, hey, you know, you're running forth or whatever,

like around these Venerini cars having a good run. Like, what do you think? You're just going to ride this one out and just kind of, you know, bring it home or what do you got? And Andy goes, and I quote, I'm just going to put my foot on the floor and I'm not lifting until I see God or a checkered flag, end quote. Nope.

I'm just going to put my foot on the floor and I'm not lifted until I see God or a checkered flag. My man. And that's exactly what he did. All the way down the back turns on the last lap. So did he see God or the checker flag first? That's a good question. I think he saw the checker flag first.

I think some other people might have seen God first. But it was the best quote and it needs to be on a t-shirt. Yeah. Well, that's the mentality of ARCA and trucks because a lot of people are just, they're going to Daytona and they don't, they don't care. They want to go down there and win. And I still think at the end of the race, I still think with Ross, I saw that mentality, but I saw that from Ross. I saw that from William Byron. I saw that from Alex Bowman, Joey the Gano, whoever it was, they were going to have that same mentality.

Now, Ross, Ross takes it to a little bit different level. And when you go back and watch this race, I mean, he did an unbelievable job of blocking those lines at the end with some pretty, pretty ballsy moves. Yes, he put that car in front of lines that were coming that were coming a lot faster than he was going at a high rate of speed. And at the end, he shot a gap. And there was one car coming up and one car coming down. And he hasn't lifted yet. Listen, man, he had to because there was no one that was going to push the one car. He had no friends.

Yeah. Like, because the Hendrick goes on the top. And then behind him was a Florida Cendrick. So, like, he had no friends. So he had to do it on his own. He was on kill mode. We know Ross Chesson's not afraid. Hammer down.

He is not afraid. I love it. Maverick. Okay. So we're coming to the close of this show. I want to do last call with you guys, what you're looking forward to, the week ahead, the upcoming race. What do you say for your last call there? Who wants to do the honors?

I'll go first. Okay. Yeah. Last call. I am looking forward to in this weekend, just who is going to show back up. Yes. Just because we don't normally go from Speedway, Super Speedway, Super Speedway. So now this is new.

So now who can double it up and put themselves in position to win the race again. Yeah. And I think one of the interesting parts about that is who's going to put themselves in a bigger hole? Because having three completely demolished, like if Ryan Blaney goes and wrecks another car, you get seven cars. That's the total amount of cars that you get per number. So if you wreck three of them, well, guess what?

We're going to go to the West Coast for two weeks. So it could put the team in quite a situation. But for me, I just, I can't wait to watch this race because it is one of the most unique facilities that we go to now with the Super Speedway package and the new pavement. Mile and a half racetrack with the Super Speedway package is something that just wasn't normally. until Atlanta Motor Speedway did this. So it's going to be an intense weekend, and I can't wait to see how it works out. We've got Kyle Busch interview.

We're going to play the whole Kyle Busch interview this Thursday for you on Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour. So that'll be a fun interview, and I think a lot of you will see exactly what I'm talking about with everything that we talked about with Kyle and just how calm he is. And it really came across well to me that he was able to. To your friends now.

Yeah. We look forward to seeing that conversation. Of course, first episode in the books, guys, this was a good one. Make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube. Follow on Facebook, X, Instagram, anywhere else you get your podcast. Follow us at Harvick. Happy Pod. We'll see you next time.