Kevin Harvick will sport a paint scheme and firesuit at Homestead-Miami Speedway reminiscent of the one used during his 2014 championship win at the track.
Budweiser, Busch Light and Stewart-Haas Racing recently surprised Harvick with the plans for a throwback Budweiser No. 4 Ford Mustang. Harvick won his first NASCAR Cup Series championship in the inaugural season of the winner-take-all format in the finale, driving a red and white Budweiser car.
A victory was necessary to win the championship over rivals Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin. It is Harvick’s only win at Homestead-Miami Speedway to date, and he still thinks of it as the single best race of his career.
“Just with the way everything went, and the great call and the race at the end and everything that happened with coming to Stewart-Haas Racing that first year,” Harvick said. “All the adversity that we had at the beginning of the year, how fast the cars were, and then putting it all together in one day to win the championship, I think that single race is probably the one that I would circle just because of everything that happened and everything that it summarized and wound up, ultimately, with a championship at the end.”
The title came in Harvick’s first year driving for Stewart-Haas Racing. Harvick is retiring at the end of the season and the Oct. 22 event will be his final visit to Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Harvick’s firesuit and livery for NASCAR’s upcoming visit to Homestead will salute the color scheme he used when he sealed the 2014 championship at the same track. Matthew Thacker/Motorsport Images
“It was not our best year,” Harvick said of winning the 2014 championship. “I think we had the fastest cars, but we had a lot of failures and a lot of situations that didn’t work out our way. And with the points structure and the way that the playoffs work, we were able to win our way to the championship and it overrode all of our flaws because of the way the system is designed.
“The system is not designed to have the best year anymore. You don’t win championships like Earnhardt used to win them, by having the best complete season. For us, we didn’t have a truck, we didn’t have a nut, we didn’t have a bolt, we didn’t have a race car. We put everything together, from hiring a driver to hiring Rodney Childers to be the crew chief to him hiring the car chief, all the way through everything that we did.
“We didn’t have a sponsor, we didn’t have anything. So to be able to put all that together and allow that to grow throughout 2014 because we knew we were fast, we just had to figure out how to get to the end of the race in order to put ourselves in a position to win, and by the time we got to the second half of the year, we had most of those bugs worked out.
“So we got to the playoffs, and, really, all the things that didn’t work out in the playoffs were overshadowed by fast cars. You used to look back at the 48 team (Jimmie Johnson) and think, ‘man, those guys are the luckiest people on earth’. No, they just had the best cars, and they had the best team and drivers and crew chiefs and situations to overcome all those flaws and mistakes or whatever they were. And that’s really where we were.
“In the end, we won Phoenix and we won Homestead, and we won Charlotte and put ourselves in a position to win the championship. Really, 2015 and 2020 were probably our best years and we didn’t win the championship. And that’s really the system that we’re in. It’s not about having the best year; it’s about winning and being successful at the right time.”
Harvick and Anheuser-Busch began working together in 2011, with Budweiser his primary sponsor. Busch Light became the team’s sponsor in 2016.
“Kevin Harvick has been an iconic Anheuser-Busch partner and cornerstone of our sports portfolio since we first started working together in 2011,” said Matt Davis, vice president of partnerships at Anheuser-Busch. “Through our partnership with Kevin, we have been able to connect with 21+ NASCAR fans across the country, giving them unparalleled access to the sport. This surprise paint scheme is just another way we are celebrating Kevin, his loyal fans, and his storied career on the track.”
Homestead-Miami Speedway previously announced the race name will be the 4EVER 400 in honor of Harvick.
