Kevin Harvick Openly Discusses Challenges of the 2001 Season

you know as as we got towards the end of 2000 we we actually started doing all the all the cup testing for your dad so he hated testing yeah you know who was doing it before uh was mike dillon we i s not dad we go to talladega no one's there just their team testing and mike's out there driving a car i'm like what the hell yeah i'm like how many races would this guy have won if he'd actually done all his own testing oh you're talking about that do you remember the ass chewing that way god in phoenix that year no you don't remember that so we went to phoenix at the end of at the end of 2000 and we were in that hauler and he was so mad because we were the fastest in his car at homestead and he had to go to the media center and answer all the questions about not wanting to drive his car and how his car is fast and is he going to retire and everything that came with it and you were you just happened to be in the hauler with me that day and he was hopping mad when he came in here he took myself and richard and and i believe you got to you got to go up and go up into the lounge and and listen to his rant as well oh all his ass rippings run together at this point oh yeah yeah yeah so he um yeah he he he was not happy but you know we we we developed the three fives and a two at kentucky because chevrolet had decided that they were going to develop a new suspension package and it was really revolved around everything was around the around the 3 car but that's where they developed the 1-4 shocks that's where they developed all the the coil binding and the soft springs and everything that that you know kind of changed the way that everybody used the springs to to make the car work so we developed all that stuff we stayed there for seven days if he was in the car testing none of that would ever got tried because he was like that's not gonna work so we tested for seven days and he we took that car the car that he didn't like was car 51 we took car 51 and that was our test car that was the one that i drove and we were we went to kentucky for seven days at that particular for that particular test before indy so we were testing for indy we were developing a new package for him to try at indy so they took that car from the test they loaded it into the truck they took it to indy he took his car and then he went out on the race track and he made his first run on the racetrack and came in they put him in the other car and he ran nine tenths of a second faster in the other car and he got out and he and he asked him he said what's different about this car and they told him the springs and he said you load that thing in the trailer right now i am not driving it again wouldn't drive it yeah because it didn't you know i mean him and rusty and all those guys they all had that they all had this you know they had to have play bars a little sway bar 1100 pound spring in the right front coming off the corner with a left front way up in there loaded it up never drove it and wouldn't drive that car he would not drive car 51 and car 51 is the car that we raced at atlanta and actually won the won my first my first cup race oh wow yeah that was car 51 that was car 51. the one with the you're putting that's it that's crazy but and it was just the car that i was comfortable in because atlanta was supposed to be they had given us two cars um to take out of the fleet because atlanta was going to be my first cup race that was the originally scheduled first cup race in 2001 we had signed america online as a sponsor and that was going to be the first of my seven races that i ran that year wow i did not never heard that yeah you were gonna be running in the cup race anyways yeah so i was i was supposed to be in the number 30 aol car at atlanta wow yeah so wow yeah all that all that uh all that stuff is strange we were texting just a little bit before a couple days ago and you talking about the first time you met dad yeah what was that experience yeah so the so the first time i first time i met him in in just a you know kind of walking we just walked into his office i didn't know i was with him today yeah so hornaday horner day stuff was all out back and this was before any of the stuff that happened with with the xfinity car i guess it would have been 98. 40 days yeah i guess the car and all that no it was when when haunted had the truck and oh yeah and everything oh chicken farm okay chicken coop whatever that's true yeah yeah yeah and so everything everything was out back and and so um hornaday and i had given our given a whirl at golf and we sucked at golf and he's like you know what we should do we should go shoot skeet i'm like okay that's a great idea i don't have a gun never had a gun in my life well we're gonna go get a gun we're gonna go see dale he's got he's got a whole room full of guns okay so we get in the truck and and drive over to the office and and walk upstairs and and we walk into his office doors open uh walk in he's got all his crap all over his all over his desk and he's got his glasses on looking down and he looks up what do you two idiots want we sit down and horny day is like well we want to go shoot skeet he's like why would you want to do that shouldn't you be working on your race cars and so he says well if you're going to shoot you two are going to go shoot skeet i don't want you two idiots shooting your feet off so he called danny do you remember danny from that used to shoot for remington yes yeah so he called danny he said hey can you come get these two idiots and teach them how to shoot these guns and he sent hornaday out back to get the truck and he said kevin you come with me we walked downstairs and the shop hadn't been built very long he's like this is what we have over here and this is what we have over here and we walk outside and we go upstairs and nothing's happening slow he's talking a million miles an hour because he knows everything that he's got and he wants to show you what he's got and explain it all to you as you're walking by at 400 miles an hour so we walk out back and we go up to the uh where all the guns and knives are deer headshots yeah and he goes up there and he's signing this sign this paper and throws me throws me a shotgun um like he made you sign a waiver a release well yeah you had that yeah yeah you had to sign the the release with the number of the gun on it so they knew who had it wow and so the guns i mean they had the remington sponsorship so i mean there was there was i can't remember the name of the knife company you remember all those knives that he had in all those cases ross cutlery oh my god i've got piles of those things yeah and he had cases and cases and cases in that room but anyway that's that's where we got our first gun and and um you know and that was that was really the first time that that i had met him face to face uh in that setting and then the next time i i saw him it was in uh in michigan this was the second time they had just announced the acdelco sponsorship in michigan richard's leading me around and he walks up in the trailer he says let's let's go talk to dale before he goes out to practice we walk up in the trailer and it's the most awkward setting that you could ever imagine right you're walking up to meet dale earnhardt and i'm nervous walking up there to not meet him but say hi to him for for the second time in my life we walk up in the lounge dude's sitting in his underwear with a pair of simpson gloves on what the hell he's sitting in his underwear with a pair of simpson gloves on richard's like dale kevin he stands up how you doing breaking in my gloves breaking him like this he had a pair he had a pair of sims and gloves on sitting in his underwear breaking his gloves in before he went out in practice because you remember how thick those things were at that particular point and so is there an advantage to doing that in your underwear though i have no idea i'm sure he was just i'm sure he was just in between uh whatever closed the race suit so yeah it was uh so yeah and he's even more awkward yeah it's more awkward so the first two are definitely awkward i mean at what point did it become you know did you ever get did you guys ever develop a normal relationship where there weren't awkward meetings well not really because he was he was never really around right you know so he didn't go to the test and um wasn't really in the shop i mean i saw him last time i saw him was at the uh at the christmas party uh in in 2000 and um so that that would you know that was really the only the only normal setting everything else were those awkward interactions at the racetrack he was either mad or uh that we'd gone and tested his car or you know at the shop or or anything like that so i've always wanted to ask you um about when they put you in the car in 2001 you know you you you go out and you win the race and you're living your dream right you're you're like not really well yeah and if you just take the win you know and and you're in the cup series you want to race like you're living your dream but you're not yeah because there's all this other stuff going on and i want to know how that affected you personally and how do you how do you ma how do you how do you kind of feel about it today and absolutely be completely honest because we've we've been absolutely honest about all that in our own lives and how yeah how that went but you know for better or worse but so it absolutely wasn't the way you wanted it to go as far as your you know you're going to run those seven races in the 30 car um but you were asked to do this other thing right and yeah and it turned out to be you turned out to be the perfect guy to do it you know you went out there and you fit right into the organization you were good you were successful you had to kind of shelve your your experience your own personal experience that path was shelved yeah and you and and look this is probably the only place that i would ever talk about this because you're probably the only one that can relate to this and for me it was it was it was strictly my path was i'd always beat my own path i always wanted to do things my own way i always wanted to be around the people that i wanted to be around and the people that i wanted to be around were todd and all the people that that were on that bush car and so you know everything happened in 2001 and i get a call on wednesday night after after the accident and richard says hey i need you to to come to the office and i looked over at delano i said well i know what's coming here what do you think i should do she's like what do you think you should do i said why i'm gonna have to drive the car and she said is that really what you want to do i said not really like i said i can't think of anything else that i would want to do less yeah and and you know so but i have to do it because if i don't do it we're going to have a major problem at the at the company at rcr so i go to the office i go to richard's office and it's richard behind his desk uh kevin hamlin and bobby hutchins kevin's got a bottle of jack daniels uh bobby's sitting at the bobby's sitting at the at the conference table and richard sitting behind the desk looks like he's not slept and probably hadn't slept in three or four days he said kevin we want you to we want you to drive the car you've done all the testing you know all the people he's like we would totally totally understand if you don't want to drive it we'll get rick mask to drive it we've already talked to rick he can go right out and we can figure out something else i said i'll do whatever it takes you know for rcr and the company until everybody gets back on on their feet and and that was really that was really the only conversation that that happened um he said well we're going to we're going to do the exact opposite on all the cars everything is black is going to be white everything that's that's white is going to be black he's like we're going to take the first available number um which is 29 and we'll go race and and until we until we figure this all out so we go to rockingham and and um you know we get to the racetrack and and i always tell people i'm like i i didn't want to be in this position i knew it was the right position to be in but there wasn't anything about this position that was fun there was not anything there that was fun and you know you go to the first press conference and i always tell people the first press conference that i ever did for my for my cup career was the biggest press conference that i'll ever do in my life did you go into that tent yeah at rockingham i mean for you've probably done big stuff like that i remember that was a weird deal that was and it was just it was right outside the track it wasn't right right outside the track in turn four yeah yeah and and so they had this huge tent set up and and i mean as many people as you want to say we're in there we're probably in there and it's just like the political big press conference that they have with all the cameras in the back and you know it's it was it was intimidating um richard made me miss practice we didn't practice we didn't practice the bush car that day so that we could go go do the go do the press conference so um so right right from the right from the beginning it was all backwards right so weird that um i never you know when i think about that whole thing i for some reason in my mind and i think this is probably habit for everybody is your first race in the cars atlanta i i didn't i don't even think about you and your experience at rockingham i remember my experience and and being around steve park and and michael and i see the pictures and stuff on the on the internet every once while but i never have until just now thought about what rockingham must have been like for you yeah that must have been sucky yeah and i mean you came by the trailer and and he said um just want you to know that my family's you know we're glad that you're in the car you know we're behind you and dale jarrett was was the other guy that that that came behind by the trailer on on that particular day no surprise and you know i i think that dale jerry thing 2001 was um the only thing that that saved us from all the chaos was the fact that we decided to race both cars you know 30. yeah no no you're not infinity mike's finished so and at that point you could still go test right so we went to every cup test we went to every every xfinity test we did every xfinity race we did every cup race so it kept me it kept me kind of secluded to my situation in driving and i got out of a ton of stuff and i didn't have to see as much of the chaos as i saw in 2002 i was really oblivious to a lot of the things that that the magnitude of the situation and and you know i think when you when you look at when you look at rockingham it it just it came at a it came at a really weird time because the next week delaney and i were getting married in las vegas oh my goodness wow there's a lot going on there yeah and then everything happened in daytona so your personal life is is changing your career path took a just a complete right turn um you know into a into a situation that had you know way more eyeballs on it than anything that you could have ever imagined and now you're just you're under this under this spotlight it's not like i didn't like any of those guys that were on the team but they just weren't my guys right sure we didn't have anything in common they were all your dad's age i was 25 they were all late 40s early 50s and we didn't we just we didn't have anything in common so you you were going to the racetrack to do what you had to do and todd did a barrier did a great job of just kind of being that middle guy of of trying to trying to be in the middle of everything that went on to try to keep the peace of the whole situation because the way they communicated in the way that they did things was just not like the way that we did things on the xfinity cars so we do the press conference at rockingham the race goes fine then i think steve won on that particular day and just just really awkward you know at that particular point and we load everybody up we go to las vegas which was actually worked out to be really good timing for our team to kind of get our minds off of off of everything we get married uh wednesday night we go to the racetrack and and i richard uh actually flew out there we got on the wrong helicopter after the race richard had a helicopter take us because the race got rained out and we raced on monday so we were already a day late to the to the wedding uh to to go to las vegas we'd get on the wrong helicopter go to the wrong airport come back to the racetrack get on the right helicopter so my soon-to-be wife is already freaking out at this particular point because everything that we've got is just unraveled is unraveled and different than than what it was supposed to be two weeks ago yeah um so anyway we fly to the airport and and go to las vegas and and we fly home with with richard and he said we got our first top ten in las vegas we got married and everything was everything worked out and and so we fly home on a plane and richard's got this fifteen thousand dollar bottle of wine that's the year that he's born we just got our first top ten and he's finally starting to you know come around and and start to speak and and you know wrap his arms around it some and we finally had a good moment right so we get on a plane and he's like you win a race we'll drink this bottle of wine i'd never drink a bottle of wine in my life so like i'm like if i'm gonna drink a bottle of wine i'd love to drink your 15 000 bottle of wine so we go out the next week and and and uh you know we go to atlanta and win a race right and you know that was supposed to be my first race it winds up being your first win and you know you go back and and i i really don't i go back and watch those videos and you're probably you know somewhat of have some of these same things like i don't remember anything about that day yeah i remember nothing i remember rockingham but atlanta i just i don't remember much about anything that that went on it was so surreal uh because of you know first you won the race but you know when i stopped on the front straightaway and pulled that window net down and did the burnout and turned around to the crowd and everybody in the crowd's got three fingers holding up and they are i mean screaming as loud as any crowd that that i'd ever heard and i'll never forget it because with like two or three laps to go we were winning and the one things one of the things that i do remember from that day were the people hanging on the back stretch fence that people had climbed up on the fence and the place was just it was turned upside down yeah and you know to not remember that just kind of tells you just how weird it all was um because you know you had to go out and do these things because it's right for the company and you know you're having to race and lost your dad and i mean there's just so many things that the sport didn't really know what to do um kind of lost its it definitely lost its leader and everybody it was just it was just weird and awkward what was two you mentioned 2002 being a very being harder yeah how well just because we'd been so secluded from from the reality of the situation right yes because 01 when no one ended for me that was like the the end of the end of all that yeah chaos right for me too and but it the chaos for me was a little bit guarded because i ran 33 32 33 xfinity races and all the testing like i hadn't you were probably just running the cup car right so and you were dealing with all the all the things during the week i didn't deal with anything i went to the racetrack and i raced and a lot of those weekends i went from one racetrack to another racetrack in a different state and you know we were so busy that you know the only things that changed there were people in my yard when i came home so we bought a guard dog um because of the fact that you know there were so many race fans and people around that that you just didn't have before but the rest of it like it was just like it was with my xfinity stuff without my guys i just went to the racetrack i tested i came home so what was that oh too it all just it all had finally come apart we had to start making decisions right at the end of one of you know with this sponsor and that sponsor and this endorsement and that endorsement because they were all there i mean your dad had i mean there were so many things that were that were there it was like well we were just going to transfer all this stuff in and i'm like no i don't like that one and i don't like that one and then the next thing you know we had a war because well it was dale did this and dale did that and yeah this is what dale did and i'm like well i'm not doing it like dale um i'm not doing this like dale and because it was just not what i had done right and so then you start to get defensive about every decision that you make and then the people stuff started to show up you know as far as um crew chief and team and and so as we went through o2 the team started to change we started changing crew chiefs and then you had all this turmoil off the racetrack because of the decisions that you had to make because everybody wanted to be like dale did it and i was like i don't want it to be like dale did it and then you had to start making those real life decisions the cars didn't run good every all that all that momentum and everything that you lived off of in 2001 that adrenaline and everything that went with that now you had a whole winner and you had all the reality of the situation the car was back to black and silver um in a much different way you know i sat in the in the conference room at gm and you know the the marketing guy at the time was like well why should you be driving our car you really don't fit our mold so you know i instantly had all this stuff that i just put my guard up against and and you know probably could have handled differently if you look back at it but it was just not nothing about it was was the way that any of it had gone to that point and i just you know you know put your guard up and and probably handled it you know defensively and made a lot of enemies um within within the company from the guys that had been there for a long time but i wanted my guys yeah to race with and eventually that's that's where it led in 2003. all right guys i know a little bit about cars so believe me when i tell you that tire pros they're the real deal they've got great people great service and they can take care of all your automotive maintenance needs plus there are spots for this show so you know they got great taste in podcasts so check out tire pros follow them on facebook and tell them that i 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Channel: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media

Views: 736,366

Keywords: NASCAR, Dale Earnhardt, Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dale Jr. Download, DJD, Dale Jr. podcast, Dirty Mo Media

Id: u_ZN0dgy5gQ

Length: 22min 32sec (1352 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 03 2021