CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick received the same answer nearly every time he talked to a retired athlete about making the decision to walk away: He would just know it was time.
Harvick, who was thrust onto the global stage when he was named Dale Earnhardt's replacement just days after the legendary driver's fatal crash in the 2001 Daytona 500 at age 49, will make his 23rd NASCAR Cup Series season his last. The 2014 Cup Series champion, who turned 47 last month, is tied for ninth on the top-tier circuit's career wins list with 60 and has made 13 consecutive playoff appearances.
He's also one of the final active drivers from NASCAR's halcyon days.
"From talking to all the people I've talked to, it always came down to the same, 'Oh, you'll know, you'll know it is time, you'll know the right moment,'" Harvick said in an AP interview ahead of his retirement announcement Thursday.
"It's great to be able to go out on your own terms and plan it how you want it to go, but the biggest thing that sticks out to me is my kids. Being home with them and seeing the impact that you have with them when you are home, being able to be part of that daily process and be that father figure, it's just time."
At the end of this season, his 10th driving for Stewart-Haas Racing, he will turn his attention to Kevin Harvick Inc. — his growing management business — the enjoyable time he has spent in the television booth, some bucket list races and, most important to him, the budding drivers in his family.
Harvick and his wife, DeLana, were adamant they would not raise racers, but the slow days early in the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago gave father and son too much free time, and 10-year-old Keelan is now karting on the international level. The young racer spent part of 2022 competing in Italy — sometimes traveling abroad without either parent — and Harvick figures he saw his son race only three times last year.
And then there's Piper, his 5-year-old daughter who now wants Dad's attention when she's in her own go-kart.
"You know, Keelan, he needs that father figure in his life, especially as he goes down the racing route," Harvick told AP. "And then Piper probably asks to go to the go-kart track more than he does, and having to send her to the track by herself really frustrates me.
"You don't want her not to have the opportunity to learn like he did. She makes twice as many strides in a day while I'm there than she would in a day when I'm not there. So there's just a time when you have to ask yourself, 'What's the most important thing for me and my time and my family right now?'"
KID FROM CALIFORNIA
Harvick, who is from Bakersfield, California, had already overcome the odds of breaking into Southern-based NASCAR when Richard Childress Racing said he'd be a Cup Series rookie alongside seven-time champion Earnhardt in 2002. But when Earnhardt was killed on the final lap of the 2001 season opener, Harvick's career was upended.
He was in the rebranded No. 29 Chevrolet five days after Earnhardt's death — less than a week before a 25-year-old Harvick's planned wedding to DeLana — and that hectic season in the spotlight was a blur. Harvick won in his third start, less than a month after Earnhardt's death, and split his time between his new Cup Series ride and the second-tier Busch Series championship he was chasing.
Harvick competed in 69 NASCAR national series races that season, posting a pair of Cup victories and five Busch wins en route to the title on the lower circuit. He was busy but grew jaded by all the attention, the endless Earnhardt comparisons and the pressure of replacing a superstar during a yearlong grieving period that had engulfed NASCAR.
Perhaps that is what made Harvick so tough.
He fought with his rivals often in his early career and was suspended for a Cup Series race in 2002 for his actions in a Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway a day earlier. That incident forged a relationship between Harvick and the late Jim Hunter, a NASCAR executive who helped Harvick navigate the politics of the sport.
But he never softened, not even after having children.
After a 2014 playoff race at Texas Motor Speedway in which Harvick was a bystander to a pit road disagreement between Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski, Harvick shoved Keselowski into Gordon and Gordon's crew to trigger a melee. Harvick for days refused to discuss his role in the brawl, only relenting when he finally accepted that his son needed to hear him accept responsibility — even though Harvick had zero remorse.
Harvick doesn't know if his grittiness developed from those first difficult years after Earnhardt's death, but he acknowledges an internal pressure to do things his own way and carve out his own legacy that really ramped up around 2006. Some of Earnhardt's sponsors began pulling off the car, and Harvick now had to stand on his own and prove his worth.
"We'd gotten through the tough years of transitioning from what Dale liked to what I liked, and through all those battles and conversations, you put your guard up and become a jerk," Harvick told AP. "Looking back at it now, you can see that you could have handled things differently, but it was digging my heels in, thinking 'I need to do this my way now,' and that created some tensions.
"But I wouldn't trade anything other than Dale's death, because all those things that came in the next five years were part of surviving and being successful and building something and learning what was right and what was wrong."
His approach led to strained relationships, including for a period with Jimmie Johnson, who shares the record for most Cup Series championships (seven) with Earnhardt and Richard Petty. Just like Harvick, Johnson had come to North Carolina from California, and both spent time crashing on the couch of famed Truck Series driver Ron Hornaday Jr. — he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2018 — as they struggled to make it in NASCAR.
Later, though, as Johnson surged to title after title while Harvick fought through lean years with RCR, the relationship fractured and Harvick shoved Johnson in the chest after a 2015 playoff race when Johnson tried to speak to him about an on-track incident.
"We've had issues, we've been great, we've had friendship, we've been through it all," Johnson told AP. "I think there's a great deal of respect between both of us. I truly admire his path and what he's overcome. Coming from the West Coast as the starting point, climbing through the ranks, we lose Dale and he's thrust into that position ... there's just a lot of layers there, and I respect his work ethic and dedication and career."
CROWN JEWELS ABOUND
Harvick, who added a second Busch Series title in 2006, counts the Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, Brickyard 400 and Southern 500 among his NASCAR crown jewel victories. Harvick also won NASCAR's first race back during the pandemic, held in front of empty grandstands at Darlington Raceway in May 2020, when it became the first major sport to return to competition.
Harvick told the AP his own handling of the 2013 parting with team owner Richard Childress — in the works for a full year before he moved to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014 — is the biggest regret of his career, and the driver is grateful that relationship is repaired.
He has forged a strong bond at SHR with co-owner Tony Stewart, crew chief Rodney Childers and his entire No. 4 team. Harvick and Childers are currently the longest active pairing in the Cup Series at 10 years. Among their 37 wins are a pair of victories last season that snapped a 65-race winless streak, the second longest of Harvick's career.
It was Stewart, the three-time Cup Series champion and Hall of Famer, who encouraged Harvick to make an early announcement about his retirement and enjoy his final season. Stewart shunned all sendoffs and appreciations in his final year, something Harvick told AP that Stewart now regrets.
NASCAR's 2023 schedule cranks up next month with the exhibition Clash at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The season officially opens with the Daytona 500 on Feb. 19.
"I want Kevin to savor every lap this season, to compete like hell and to take it all in," Stewart said. "He's made all of us at Stewart-Haas Racing incredibly proud, and we want to make his last season his best season."
Harvick said with certainty that he will not compete in the Cup Series after this year, but he's not completely finished racing. In fact, he already has plans for the souped-up late model car he plans to prepare for himself the day that Keelan is old enough to compete against his father.
"He's a cocky 10-year-old right now who thinks he can beat anyone," Harvick told AP. "We'll see when the time comes."