Editor’s Note: NASCAR is celebrating its 75th anniversary. SPEED SPORT was founded in 1934 and was already on its way to becoming America’s Motorsports Authority when NASCAR was formed. As a result, we will bring you Part 67 of a 75-part series on the history NASCAR.
Few could have predicted the success Kevin Harvick and Rodney Childers would have in their first season together at Stewart-Haas Racing.
That success included five victories and a stirring run to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.
Harvick spent 13 seasons with Richard Childress Racing, occasionally contending for a title but never winning one before he departed for Stewart-Haas after the 2013 season.
Childers — a former late-model standout who joined the ranks of drivers turned crew chiefs — left Michael Waltrip Racing. He’d won three races in his nine years as a Sprint Cup crew chief before he began working with Harvick.
Childers wasn’t sure he wanted to join SHR when he was offered the job.
What became a title-winning duo was nearly a missed opportunity.
“I wasn’t even going to take the job until (team co-owner) Tony Stewart got on his plane and flew to meet me one night,” Childers said. “He looked me in the eyes that night and said, ‘We’re going to do this.’”
Their dreams became a reality when Harvick won the Ford EcoBoost 400 on Nov. 16 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It was his second straight victory to end the season.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Daytona 500, while Harvick finished 13th. However, the week after Daytona, Harvick decimated the field at Phoenix Raceway and held off Earnhardt to win. He followed it up by passing Earnhardt for another victory, at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, in April.
Bad luck and mechanical failures were the team’s story during most of the first quarter of the season. They clinched a berth in the winners-get-in-first Chase for the Sprint Cup, but Harvick finished outside the top 35 in four of seven races.
“The best thing that I’ve experienced this year about Rodney and myself is that we’re kind of a little bit opposite,” Harvick said. “I’m pretty high-strung, he’s pretty low-key. It’s been a pretty good balance.”
Any frustration the Bakersfield, Calif., native had amid engine failures and blown tires was kept to himself as he was left out of the battle for early-season supremacy. It involved only Earnhardt, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon and Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski. Harvick left Darlington ranked 22nd in points.
Their fortunes took a turn for the better throughout the summer months but five second-place finishes were the best the team could muster before the standings were reset for the Chase.
As his biggest title rival alternated between Gordon, Earnhardt, Keselowski and his Penske teammate Joey Logano, Harvick kept the faith in his team.
Consistent finishes got him through the first round of the playoffs and a dominant victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway clinched a berth in round three. Harvick’s clutch performance at Phoenix Raceway gave him his fourth win and a spot in the title fight.
All Childers wanted was a chance to show he could lead a driver to a championship. Harvick made sure the team was fully motivated for the task at hand.
“I told them at Phoenix that these are the moments you live for,” Harvick said.
Harvick had to beat Logano, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman — from RCR, Harvick’s previous team — to win the title.
A late-race caution left Childers and Harvick with a decision that determined their fate: Stay out like Hamlin, take two tires like Newman, or take four tires and fight to the front.
“I told (Childers) that our strength of what we’ve done all year has been the decisions we’ve made whether we’ve run good or bad,” Harvick said.
The four-tire call ended up being the right one. Harvick sped to the lead when Hamlin’s black No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry slid high in turn four with eight laps to go. The title, however, still hung in the balance.
Newman — in his first season at RCR — was winless and had led only 41 laps all year, but he was consistent enough to find himself beside Harvick on a restart with three laps to go and the Sprint Cup on the line.
Harvick left no doubt as soon as the green flag dropped. He passed Newman and into the history books two laps later as the series’ 30th champion in its 66th year. He won more races than anyone except Keselowski (six) this season and he finished at the top of the scoring tower when it mattered most.
Hamlin won once and finished third in the standings, while Logano was fourth with five triumphs.
Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Earnhardt each won four races, while Carl Edwards picked up a pair of victories. Other drivers winning a race were Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, A.J. Allmendinger, Kasey Kahne and Aric Almirola.
Kyle Larson was the Cup Series rookie of the year, finishing 17th in the standings for Chip Ganassi Racing.