If Kevin Harvick had introduced his retirement on Jan. 12, 2002 as a substitute of Jan. 12, 2023, he would have already had a loads strong-enough case for the NASCAR Corridor of Fame. Fortunately, he did not then. He did now, dropping the information by way of social media on Thursday morning that the 2023 NASCAR Cup Collection season will probably be his final as a full-time racer.

In that video, the once-fresh-faced child from Bakersfield, California, who as soon as shouldered a load that nobody ought to ever be requested to hold, was now a weathered-eyed grown man. And as he spoke the phrases that introduced his retirement plans, he seemed like somebody who was excited to lastly set that weight down. In any case these years of chippiness, sensible remarks and sarcasm, punctuated by winks, laughs and pearls of downright knowledge, the racer who was way back satirically nicknamed Blissful seemed and sounded, effectively, comfortable.

All I may consider was a quote from the late Bobby Hamilton. It was at Martinsville in 2001, Harvick’s thirtieth Cup Collection begin. He’d had a run-in with Hamilton, then a 12-year sequence veteran, that ended his day penalized by NASCAR. The rookie shrugged it off on nationwide TV. Hamilton responded, “The issue you have got right here is you have got a younger child with numerous expertise making an attempt to fill Dale Earnhardt’s footwear and thinks he’s Dale Earnhardt, and he would not make a scab on Dale Earnhardt’s butt proper now. He simply wants slightly extra time.”

He obtained that. Greater than twenty years of it. Harvick used that phrase, “time,” quite a bit in the course of the media rounds that adopted his announcement.

#4EVER pic.twitter.com/iH5dzpt4HY

— Kevin Harvick (@KevinHarvick) January 12, 2023

“From a private facet, I am simply out of time. I would like issues to do the place I’ve extra choices with my youngsters,” he mentioned to Sirius XM’s NASCAR channel shortly after the announcement. He spoke of daughter Piper, 5, and son Keelan, 9, who now races karts. He expressed remorse that he hadn’t been in a position to attend his son’s races as a lot as he would have favored final 12 months. “I’ve all the time advised you that when it began affecting my youngsters, it was most likely going to be the deciding issue, and in the long run that is actually what the deciding issue was.”

He turned 47 final month, a milestone that was celebrated one month after the shut of his twenty second season racing at NASCAR’s highest degree and his thirteenth with a number of race wins. His 60 victories are tied for tenth on the all-time wins listing. Amongst these triumphs are three Brickyard 400s, two Coca-Cola 600s, a pair of Southern 500s, a NASCAR All-Star Race victory and one of many gutsiest last-lap dashes ever seen within the Daytona 500. Do your self a favor and enter an internet seek for “Kevin Harvick’s 2007 Daytona 500 Final Lap On-Board Digital camera.”

He received the Cup Collection title in 2014, to go together with a pair of Busch (now Xfinity) Collection championships, a NASCAR Winston West title and even an IROC championship. He ranks tenth all-time in Cup Collection top-five finishes (245), fifth all-time in top-10s (430) and eleventh all-time in laps led (15,901). He has completed within the prime 5 within the ultimate season championship standings a shocking 13 instances, together with eight of the previous ten years.

However not even all of these years and all of these wins and even that avalanche of trophies and statistics have been sufficient to overshadow what he did in 2001. Actually not for these of us who witnessed it firsthand.

Editor’s Picks

2 Associated

On the morning of Feb. 18, 2001, the day of the Daytona 500, he was recognized solely because the California late-model racer who had been handpicked by Richard Childress to maybe in the future slide into one among RCR’s two Cup Collection Chevrolets. However first, he was to proceed to show himself within the Busch Collection, the place he’d simply received three races in his first 12 months with Childress. He was engaged to be married to DeLana Linville, the daughter of a North Carolina brief monitor legend. The stage was set for a really typical slow-burn ladder climb with the top purpose of maybe turning into teammate to Earnhardt, the largest star within the sport.

By the point the solar had set that night time, although, Earnhardt was useless. 5 days later, in Rockingham, North Carolina, Harvick was behind the wheel of the Monte Carlo which have been ready for The Intimidator. It was painted white as a substitute of black and the quantity on the door was 29 as a substitute of three. For the rest of that season, Harvick was requested to do the unimaginable. Not solely was he anticipated to drive NASCAR’s most well-known journey, he was to take action whereas being thrust into the roles of grief counselor and legacy defender.

He was 25.

Someway, he received his third race in that automobile, a dramatic 0.006-second photograph end over Earnhardt’s final nice rival, Jeff Gordon. The picture of his pit crew — Earnhardt’s pit crew — weeping as he did a reverse victory lap with three fingers prolonged into the air, will all the time be one of many single most memorable moments within the 75-year historical past of NASCAR.

He backed that up with a second victory at brand-new Chicagoland Speedway that summer time. He completed the season ranked ninth within the standings and incomes Rookie of the Yr honors. All whereas successful 5 races and a championship in his Busch Collection automobile. All of the whereas, he feuded with veterans and banged doorways along with his kids. See: 2002 Bristol, coming off the hood of Greg Biffle’s automobile like Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka to land on Biffle’s head.

On the time, so many people agreed with Hamilton. The child was making an attempt too laborious to be Intimidator II, proper? The pressure of all of it had frayed his nerves and shredded his widespread sense, proper? There was no method he may hold that type of depth turned as much as 11 with out burning out over the course of a profession, proper?

We had been fallacious, on all accounts. Even Hamilton corrected himself years later, laughing as he mentioned, “This appears to have labored out for him fairly effectively, hasn’t it?”

Harvick himself spent years dodging questions and conversations about that first 12 months. You could not blame him for that. Each racer desires to be remembered for what they did, not what they had been compelled to do within the shadow of those that got here earlier than. It’s why he finally left Childress to drive for a fellow chip-on-his-shoulder kindred spirit in Tony Stewart, the place Harvick lastly received that elusive championship.

Each racer additionally desires to be remembered for his or her legacy. For Harvick, that legacy is about all of these victories, however it is usually concerning the child who grew into the position of a frontrunner amongst his friends. At all times outspoken, all the time pointed, and looking out again, just about all the time appropriate. When he hangs up his helmet in November at Phoenix Raceway, the place he has essentially the most wins all time with 9, he’ll turn into one among so many amongst his technology to have retired in recent times. Lastly ceding the storage to the kids whom he not so way back had a disagreement with over their failure to have really earned the eye they had been receiving as superstars of the game.

The twist being that years in the past he began a sports activities administration enterprise to signify athletes all around the sports activities world, however particularly kids with potential. Now he’ll go to work hoping that his racing-obsessed son may in the future be a type of athletes.

However in the long run, it doesn’t matter what he has carried out and it doesn’t matter what he may do sooner or later, we must always all take this 12 months, Harvick’s ultimate 12 months, and thank him for that one 12 months so way back. When that child shouldered a lot on all of our behalf.