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NEWS
July 18, 2008
Harvick gets his first look at
Oxford
OXFORD, Maine - Three hours of testing, tuning and talking taught
Kevin Harvick one immediate, valuable lesson about Oxford Plains
Speedway.
"Don't hit the curb,"
Harvick said Friday as a captive audience of local media laughed
with him.
Now add another 16 cars in a TD
Banknorth 250 heat race, or 39 more when the main event hits the
track Sunday night.
Harvick already heard that side of
the equation from Matt Kenseth, Kurt and Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin
and J.J. Yeley.
Each of those drivers has attempted
at least one 250 since 2004. Kenseth finished third after taking a
provisional starting spot. Busch The Younger led laps and left an
impression in both of his appearances.
"They just said that everybody races hard. I didn't really talk
to anybody about it, just in passing that everybody's pretty
competitive and races hard," Harvick said. "That's the
hardest part, to come in here and keep up with these guys that run
good on a week-to-week basis. No matter where you go in the country,
it's hard to be competitive with local guys."
Harvick walked the track before
climbing into his familiar #29, an ACT-legal ride built in North
Carolina by members of his NASCAR Nationwide Series team.
He also tested the Port City chassis at Hickory (N.C.) Motor
Speedway, another historic, 3/8-mile oval, less than a month ago.
Shane Wilson, a Vermont native who
was Harvick's chief mechanic when he steered the #21 on the
Nationwide circuit, was a driving force behind the decision to build
a car and attempt the 250.
Furnishing his own ride is a matter of both convenience and
comfort for the 2007 Daytona 500 and two-time Nationwide champion..
"Safety-wise, it makes my
life a lot easier convincing Richard (Childress, his Sprint Cup
boss) that it's OK to do these things. When you take care of the
safety side of it, you know what you've got," Harvick said.
"It's a long race, too, in all reality. It's got my own seat in
it, so that makes it comfortable to sit in."
"The rules are a lot different than anything we would race
across the country. I do some of those deals where you sit in the
seat and hope for the best when you get there," he added.
"There's too many cars here to hope for the best when you get
there."
More than 115 entries are already
filed for Sunday's event, with many competitors typically waiting
until the race weekend to fill out the paperwork.
In addition to the long and recently revived tradition of NASCAR
stars competing in the 250, there is a family history for Harvick,
as well.
His late father-in-law, John
Linville, was a Nationwide (then Busch Series) driver in the
mid-1980s to early '90s. Linville made multiple attempts to qualify
during those years, never quite making the cut.
"(Wife) DeLana rode in a
cube van several hours up from North Carolina when they tried to
qualify a couple times. (John) talked about what a big race it
was," Harvick said. "When you hear a lot about something,
you want to experience it for yourself. A big race no matter where
it's at is a big race. I heard more stories about driving up here
from them than I actually did about the race."
Chuck Bown, Tommy Houston, Jack
Ingram, Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin and Jimmy Hensley were the
southern stars at that time.
Harvick was a teenager growing up in
Bakersfield, Calif.
"It's not very hard to talk me into going somewhere to
race," Harvick said. "It's a pretty historic race in
itself. We've been down there talking about the past winners of the
Nationwide races and the things that they've had in the past. It's
one of the bigger late model races you can race in the country. I
like going places that I haven't been before, so it's neat to be a
part of it."
Now that he's familiar with the history and has a mental picture of
the track layout itself, Harvick's eyes are fixed on the immediate
future and moving up the speed chart this weekend.
While there were no official lap
times, watchful eyes said that Harvick was running times comparable
to the fastest OPS weekly Late Models.
"It felt good. We never got a
chance to put new tires on it," said Harvick, whose test was
halted by a brief shower shortly before noon.
Saturday and Sunday's practice sessions will be devoted to figuring
out how to pass in the second and third grooves, even if Harvick
admits that isn't his natural tendency.
"I've always one of those people
that likes to run on the bottom of race tracks. They say in order to
be passing somebody here, you've got to learn to run the
middle," Harvick said. "I think it ran pretty good. It's
kind of like dirt racing, to tell you the truth. You've got to look
for grip and keep all the momentum that you can. It's just another
race track that you need to get used to, where you need to go and
what you need to do."
Harvick acknowledged that his other motivation this weekend is
relaxation.
Kevin and his crew are expected to
attend a Portland Sea Dogs game. That is, if they're not burning the
midnight oil in hopes of winning the race and recouping the loss
from another portion of the visit.
"All our wives went to Boston,
so we're on our own," he said. "It's got to be fun. It's
an off weekend from my normal job. So that's my first priority. My
second priority is to make sure we're at least competitive, and I
think we're going to be OK in that department."
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(207) 645-4571
Photos from
all OPS divisions!
Photos by
Trudy Marshall
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