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Only Yesterday: Kevin Harvick Looks To Join One of NASCAR’s Most Exclusive Clubs in Phoenix

As the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Phoenix Raceway for the final stop of the annual West Coast tour, one driver stands alone as that track’s top wheelman: Kevin Harvick.

Harvick has a total of nine wins at Phoenix, more than double the total of Jimmie Johnson, the next driver on the track’s all-time wins list. He has triple that of the next drivers in line after that.

Harvick’s nine wins add up to a 22.9% winning percentage at the one-mile oval. He has finished in the top 10 at Phoenix 72.5% of the time. He has not finished outside the top 10 in a decade; his last finish outside the top 10 was a 13th-place in the spring 2013 event. He won the race before that and the next four after.

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It gets even more impressive from there. Harvick has never failed to finish a Phoenix race, and he’s completed all but 21 laps out of a possible 12,487 since his debut in 2001 (and 15 of his lost laps came in a single race in 2003). He’s led over 1,600 laps.

In a nutshell:

Phoenix Raceway: Kevin Harvick
Starts: 40
Wins: 9 (22.9%)
Top five: 19 (47.5%)
Top 10: 29 (72.5%)
Average finish: 8.7
Laps completed: 12,466/12,487 (99.8%)
Laps led: 1,663
Poles: 2
DNF: 0

And now, Harvick has a chance to make history.

Harvick, who has announced that the 2023 season will be his last in Cup competition, has two races left at Phoenix to join an extremely elite group of drivers with 10 or more wins at a single track.

Just how elite is this club? To date, it has just five members across nine racetracks. Every driver on the list has no fewer than three Cup titles. It’s a list of some of the best drivers of all time and one a lot of the sport’s greats never made.

Here’s the short list of double-digit winners.

Bristol Motor Speedway: Darrell Waltrip
Starts: 52
Wins: 12 (23.1%)
Top five: 26 (50%)
Top 10: 32 (61.5%)
Average finish: 11.3
Laps completed: 22,964/25,461 (90.2%)
Laps led: 3,436
Poles: 4
DNF: 5
Darlington Raceway: David Pearson
Starts: 47
Wins: 10 (21.3%)
Top five: 24 (51.1%)
Top 10: 30 (63.8%)
Average finish: 12.0
Laps completed: 12,536/15,902 (78.8%)
Laps led: 2,116
Poles: 12
DNF: 17
Daytona International Speedway: Richard Petty
Starts: 74
Wins: 10 (13.5%)
Top five: 28 (37.8%)
Top 10: 37 (50%)
Average finish: 15.0
Laps completed: 9,417/11,767 (80%)
Laps led: 1,278
Poles: 4
DNF: 27
Dover Motor Speedway: Jimmie Johnson
Starts: 38
Wins: 11 (28.9%)
Top five: 18 (47.4%)
Top 10: 27 (71.1%)
Average finish: 9.7
Laps completed: 14,787/15,041 (98.3%)
Laps led: 3113
Poles: 5
DNF: 2
Martinsville Speedway: Richard Petty
Starts: 67
Wins: 15 (22.4%)
Top five: 30 (44.8%)
Top 10: 37 (55.2%)
Average finish: 11.2
Laps completed: 27,891/32,853 (84.9%)
Laps led: 2823
Poles: 2
DNF: 20
Martinsville Speedway: Darrell Waltrip
Starts: 52
Wins: 11 (21.2%)
Top five: 27 (51.9%)
Top 10: 31 (59.6%)
Average finish: 10.8
Laps completed: 23,727/25,580 (92.8%)
Laps led: 3617
Poles: 8
DNF: 10
North Carolina Speedway (Rockingham Speedway): Richard Petty
Starts: 54
Wins: 11 (20.4%)
Top five: 23 (42.6%)
Top 10: 28 (51.9%)
Average finish: 13.9
Laps completed: 21,626/26,624 (81.2%)
Laps led: 3130
Poles: 3
DNF: 16
North Wilkesboro Speedway: Richard Petty
Starts: 66
Wins: 15 (27.7%)
Top five: 33 (50%)
Top 10: 42 (63.6%)
Average finish: 10.0
Laps completed: 22,281/25,297 (88.1%)
Laps led: 5315
Poles: 3
DNF: 14
North Wilkesboro Speedway: Darrell Waltrip
Starts: 45
Wins: 10 (22.2%)
Top five: 19 (42.2%)
Top 10: 26 (57.8%)
Average finish: 9.8
Laps completed: 17,370/18,000 (96.5%)
Laps led: 2923
Poles: 9
DNF: 3
Richmond Raceway: Richard Petty
Starts: 63
Wins: 13 (20.6%)
Top five: 34 (54%)
Top 10: 41 (65.1%)
Average finish: 9.2
Laps completed: 21,135/23,937 (88.3%)
Laps led: 5142
Poles: 8
DNF: 13
Talladega Superspeedway: Dale Earnhardt
Starts: 44
Wins: 10 (22.7%)
Top five: 23 (52.3%)
Top 10: 27 (61.4%)
Average finish: 12.4
Laps completed: 7,199/8,203 (87.8%)
Laps led: 1377
Poles: 3
DNF: 11

It’s impossible to make straight comparisons among all of these drivers and tracks because of the different time frames. Today’s equipment is more durable then it used to be, and engine failures and attrition due to mechanical issues is much rarer than it was in years past. But a high rate of DNFs at superspeedways is not particularly out of the ordinary; those tracks were historically hard on engines and crashes have taken over in recent years as a cause of major attrition.

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But what’s shown here is that very few drivers have been consistently excellent at any venue long enough to score double-digit wins, and the ones who do are exceptional. And Harvick’s numbers at Phoenix are right in line with any of them. His win percentage (a solid stat for a driver with 30 or more races at a track as all of these drivers do) is in the ballpark of any of them, and his top-10 percentage is almost off the chart — only Johnson’s comes close. And while you can argue the law of averages — more starts offer more opportunities for lower finishes — they also offer more opportunities for top 10s.

But what sets Harvick apart is the sheer number of laps he’s completed. And while some of that can be attributed to the durability of today’s cars, the fact that he hasn’t failed to finish a single race points to a level of excellence at which he hasn’t even made many mistakes. The one race in 2003 when he finished 15 laps down was due to being caught in a crash, and he’s only failed to finish on the lead lap in six races. Not only that, but Harvick has finished on the lead lap in every Phoenix Cup race since 2011. 

Even without the win, Harvick is a shoo-in first ballot Hall of Famer in a few years, and he doesn’t need it to solidify his place in Phoenix Raceway history either. Because nobody has done it better — nobody has even come close. 

What that win would do is elevate Harvick to a level of excellence that few drivers have achieved in 75 years of NASCAR racing. He’s got two last shots at joining one of NASCAR’s most exclusive clubs. He may not have anything left to prove at Phoenix, but if he can close the deal one more time, he leaves as a legend. 

About the author

Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.

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