Has Kevin Harvick (at age 43) Lost A Step?

A driving style adjustment of this magnitude is a killer when you're in the twilight of your career. Atlanta and Phoenix might as well been a repave. The small advantages that he had found and mastered over the years, gone.

At the same time I have not seen the dominating race long speed with their cars, not in the same ballpark that they've had in previous years. The exception being Kansas, that was a race winning car, failed on execution.
 
Turtle84 said:
A driving style adjustment of this magnitude is a killer when you're in the twilight of your career. Atlanta and Phoenix might as well been a repave. The small advantages that he had found and mastered over the years, gone.

At the same time I have not seen the dominating race long speed with their cars, not in the same ballpark that they've had in previous years. The exception being Kansas, that was a race winning car, failed on execution.
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Yeah I mean it's those advantages in the low downforce days that gave him an advantage. His ability to hook the bottom consistently is really top notch
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
I think the new package has a lot to do with it.
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Hell no, Kevin isn't over the hill, and hell yes, it's the package. IMO Harvick kills people on corner entry and center speed. The new package has evened all of that up. It will be fascinating to see if Rodney can find him something to help. Harvick has been the fastest by a ton for several years now.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
I think Jones is going to be the next Logano, in that, if he ends up out at JGR and with another team, he'll thrive. Something about that team and extremely talented young drivers not thriving there.

Veteran drivers seem to run well there - Kenseth, Edwards, Truex... but young drivers don't.
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I think EJ will be fine there, but to your point, yeah, young guns struggle there. I think they are intimidated by Kyle Busch. I really do, and I bet that the data makes it easy for them to feel that way.
 
AuzGrams said:
I'm not buying it other than SHR isn't quite up to speed. They looked good with the All-Star package.
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My two cents....The SHR engineering department was a step off in anticipating what the new package needed. They are trying to catch up, and you can ask Chevy how easy that is.
 
kyle18fan said:
Harv just needs a new spoiler, something similar to the one he had tremendous success with :pbjtime:
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Rodney wants the splitter now. I think he has pictures of splitters hanging on his bedroom wall. When you say, "step splitter," he lights up a cigarette.
 
Nitro Dude said:
Yep, unless they just had such a large performance advantage over the rest of the field like Richard Petty did for a while.
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not like someone could win say 4 or 5 championships in a row these days.....:tongue:
 
I don't think Jimmie was even winning 4 or 5 races in a row when he was winning his championships in a row.

That's more like Gordon during the early part of his career to pull off consecutive wins like that. I remember in like his 5 or 6th year in cup his win percentage was something stupid like every third race on average.
 
Harvick is still a top 5 driver in the field. Honestly, I'd say top 3. He and Keselowski are toss ups IMO.

Ky. Busch
Logano
Harvick
Keselowski
Truex

All close IMO.
 
That B.S. uncontrolled tire penalty last week killed a brilliant pit call from Harvick's bunch that would have put him out front. Who knows if that would have been a winning move, but it sure would have made things interesting even if it wasn't. Logano's win at Homestead proved that a team doesn't have to dominate the season to win the championship. The POINTS MATTER playoffs pretty much negates threads like these sadly. Oh yeah they give out a highly coveted regular season winner trophy to cover up the smell. I think Penske caught them napping last year by building all new latest greatest cars for the playoffs. I doubt that is going to happen this year, the front runners will all have new pieces.
 
Even if he didn't win and finished 4th or 5th in points with some stage wins he'd have 10-14 playoff points, that's at least top 8 imo in playoff points which is what we should be tracking.

Busch, Keselowski, Truex look poised, but you got Harvick, Elliott, Logano lurking.
 
I've always been a guy that likes data. On the job, in my personal life, as a racing fan, all of 'em. Others prefer to to rely on the eyeball test. Sometimes the two agree, sometimes not. So the question is... Is Kevin Harvick still The Closer?

For full year 2018, Harvick had the fastest car, but his #1 rank was just barely better than Kyle Busch at #2. After those two, there was a big gap to the rest.

For the 15 races of 2019, the rank order at the top has flipped... Busch fastest, then Harvick. However, at four races, Harvick was the #1 fastest car... Dover, Kansas, Charlotte, Michigan (and the All Star Race, but not counting that). That's not bad. It's just *slightly* less than last year, but it's still great speed.

Since moving from Childress Racing to Stewart-Haas for 2014, Harvick has driven 195 cup races. He has had the fastest car 48 times, according to David Smith at Motorsports Analytics. Those 48 races resulted in 13 wins... a conversion rate of 27% on days with the fastest car.

The long term cup series average is 40% conversion for the fastest car, so Harvick's 27% is not too spiffy, IMO. What has happened to The Closer?

And this year, Harvick's passing efficiency has slipped in a big way, as discussed in the OP. So if he can't turn that around, it doesn't bode well, IMO.
 
If it continues the way it has for him, that conversion rate will continue to dip.

I often look back at 2015 when it comes to Kevin Harvick. He had an unforeseen number of runner-up finishes, easily was the champion under the normal format, but still only got three wins.

The Closer does not seem like an appropriate nickname for him anymore. He is still a great driver beyond a shadow of a doubt, and his crew has played an instrumental part in scarring his conversion rate. However, I have not seen him sneak into a win a late clutch move for some time now. There is no other team that springs to mind when it comes to tossing races away on pit road. The only thing comparable that I think of is how Denny Hamlin individually screws up his races on pit road, and even he seems to have gotten it together as of late.
 
I believe they have been calling Harvick The Closer along with many other names for a number of years. :p No doubt he is in a terrible slump at season midpoint. Don't need a rocket scientist as they say
 
Genuine question: did the data ever show Harvick in fact being The Closer to a greater degree than other top drivers? As in, there was a period when anecdotally he gained the rep for taking control of races late and being a clutch performer. Was this statistically true or just the eyeball test?

It seemed to me that the #4 team threw away a lot of victories when he was at his most dominant, but again, that's my eyeball test, and I'm aware that the fastest car wins less than 50% of Cup races.

I'm still leary of judging Harvick's declining performance from 2018 to 2019 as if the driver's ability is the most pertinent variable. There are great momentum racers who excel using this year's rules, and I'm inclined to think that isn't where Harvick's strengths are relative to his other top competitors.
 
gnomesayin said:
I'm still leary of judging Harvick's declining performance from 2018 to 2019 as if the driver's ability is the most pertinent variable. There are great momentum racers who excel using this year's rules, and I'm inclined to think that isn't where Harvick's strengths are relative to his other top competitors.
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Harvick has had at least a couple races he should have won this year, and the usual suspects are clustered at the top of the pole racing the brand new baby.
 
gnomesayin said:
I guess by that weird measure, Jamie Mac was quite a Closer for a time because he only won big races.

I thought it had to do with Harvick always seemingly showing up late in a race to take control and win.
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yeah, What the heck were the calling Jaimie back then? something like big money racer?
 
gnomesayin said:
I guess by that weird measure, Jamie Mac was quite a Closer for a time because he only won big races.

I thought it had to do with Harvick always seemingly showing up late in a race to take control and win.
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It's just the two big races I thought of in which he seized the lead on the last lap and claimed a crown jewel in the blink of an eye. Of course, there may be more races from the past decade I missed. I'm not exactly sure how he got the moniker, but he sure isn't The Closer now. :lol2:
 
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