July 22, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Kevin Harvick is heating up at the right time, but will it be enough?

The 2022 NASCAR Cup season has offered fresh storylines: New car. New winners. Fourteen different victors in the first 20 races.

But it’s the usual suspects missing from that list of 14 that might provide the most compelling tale of all. 

Perhaps the most curious omission from the 14 is Kevin Harvick—simply because he has qualified for every Playoff since 2010. No other driver on the tour can make that claim.

With six races to determine this season’s Playoff grid, the pressure is mounting for Kevin Harvick and other perennial contenders such as Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski. Three of the four drivers finished in the top 10 last week at New Hampshire. Truex led the crowd with a fourth-place run. Harvick rounded out the top five with his second top-five result in five starts. 

Since Harvick chastised his former pit crew, and Stewart-Haas Racing responded with changes before Nashville Speedway on June 23, five races ago, the No. 4 team has finished no worse than 12th. The team has picked up the pace on pit road after recruiting Daniel Coffey as the front tire changer and Brandon Banks in the jackman’s role.

Harvick actually used the word “proud” in response to his team’s performance at New Hampshire before adding, “We will keep plugging away.”

Perhaps the turnaround can continue at Pocono Raceway. In Harvick’s last 15 starts at Pocono, he has finished outside the top 10 only twice. Given Harvick’s longevity in the sport, it’s understandable that the 46-year-old racer leads all current drivers on the Cup tour at Pocono with 15 top fives, 22 top 10s, and 6,992 laps led. 

Denny Hamlin leads all drivers with six wins at the Tricky Triangle, followed by Kyle Busch (4), Kurt Busch (3), and Truex (2). Harvick, Blaney and Keselowski each have one win at the 2.5-mile track. 

Harvick, currently in the throes of a 64-race drought, got his first Pocono victory two seasons ago when NASCAR introduced the doubleheader weekend during the pandemic. Harvick won the first of two races and finished second to Hamlin the next day. 

Still, the new car could be a game-changer in the Keystone State on Sunday.

“With the NextGen car’s characteristics, you’re going to be able to push and shove and bump draft and all of the things that you can do,” Harvick said. “And then you’re going to have options on gears, so add that in with sometimes being difficult to pass, I think it’s going to be interesting to see the restarts. I think the restarts are going to get more intense than they’ve been before.”

Over the last 22 seasons, Harvick has experienced the evolution of shifting gears with the different cars at Pocono. The sequential shifter in the current car provides a new dynamic for the drivers.

“It’s basically just up and down,” Harvick said. “When you push up on the shifter, it’s a downshift. When you pull down on the shifter, it’s an upshift. It’s really easy to use. Once you put it into gear, there’s no need to use the clutch or anything on the upshifts or the downshifts. It’s made it a little easier to shift, but there’s a lot more shifting going on, so that adds a new element to it that you really didn’t have before.

“It’s definitely just kind of a piece of the puzzle that’s come with this new car, and at Pocono, I think we’re going to shift in every corner.” 

Harvick is ninth in the traditional point standings—third, behind Blaney and Truex, among drivers who have yet to win in 2022. On the Playoff grid, he sits 17th, 68 points behind Truex. Harvick’s performance in the new car was inconsistent early on but has improved greatly over the last month. His average finish of 8.2 in the last five races is slightly better than Blaney’s 8.6 and significantly stronger than Truex’s 15.2. Only Chase Elliott and Ross Chastain have better average finishes in their last five starts.

If the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team can continue on its current trajectory, certainly a win—particularly at Michigan or Richmond—is not out of the question.