This Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix Raceway will be the final time Kevin Harvick gets behind the wheel of the No. 4 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing.
Harvick, 47, is retiring from full-time racing at the end of the season after 23 seasons in NASCAR’s top circuit. In a recent sit-down interview with Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports, Harvick revealed what he’ll miss most about competing in NASCAR.
“I love the competition with people,” Harvick said. “I love being around my team and the guys and gals that put the cars on the racetrack. Love that piece of competing. But it’s also the thing that I’m looking forward to the most — not having to worry about it. Because it consumes you for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It just consumes the mindset that you have and everything that you do. In order to do it well, you have to think about it all.
“And so getting out of that competition mindset, for me, is something that’s just going to be such a relief that I can’t even stand it. And it’s going to be the first time that I can ever walk into the garage and say, ‘Man, I can really enjoy the race today.’ I can look around and I can look at the fans and the campers and people and not be aggravated by somebody yelling at me because qualifying did good, because they want an autograph or whatever it is.
Kevin Harvick calling it quits on NASCAR career
“You can just enjoy all the sights and sounds of everything that’s happening and take it all in. I want to take it in. I love the sport. Can’t wait to tell people about it and talk about the amazing drivers and teams that we have on the racetrack that are out there doing something that everybody watching can’t do for the most part.”
Harvick, the 2014 Cup Series champion and 60-time winner, will still be involved in the sport in some capacity. Beginning with the 2024 season, Harvick will join the Fox Sports booth as an announcer, following in the footsteps of fellow NASCAR legends Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I have done a lot a lot of things in the booth and knew that was somewhere that I wanted to be because I like talking about the sport,” Harvick said earlier this year. “I like to be able to tell stories and be a part of the broadcast and that’s something that I have enjoyed. Enjoyed the preparation and everything that goes into it to be able to tell a story.”