Keelan Harvick to make CARS Tour debut at New River All-American Speedway

Keelan Harvick, the son of NASCAR legend Kevin Harvick, is getting ready to make his CARS Tour debut. The 12-year-old driver will compete in a CARS Tour Pro Late Model race at New River All-American Speedway in Jacksonville, North Carolina on Saturday.

Per FloRacing, this will also be the first time Keelan Harvick will drive a Pro Late Model car. He has spent the majority of his career competing in go-karts and legends cars, but he made his Limited Late Model debut in November.

“I’m really excited,” Harvick told FloRacing. “I think that it’ll be a new learning curve for me, especially because I’ve never driven it, but I think it will be fun.”

Earlier this month, Keelan Harvick won a full-bodied stock car race at Florence. He started on pole and won the 40-lap Limited Late Model race.

“I’m not really sure how different it will be until I get in it and drive it,” Harvick said. “I think it will be similar, but different in its own ways. My confidence is definitely up, but you can just never let it get too high or it’ll come crashing right back down.”

Keelan and Kevin Harvick will race against each other

The news of Keelan Harvick making his CARS Tour debut comes nearly two weeks after Kevin Harvick announced he will race against his son multiple times this year. “So, today, we are announcing Keelan and I’s first race against each other,” Harvick said on his Happy Hour podcast. “It’s going to be May 31st in my hometown of Bakersfield, California at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway. How cool is it to have our – the first time we’re going to race each other it’s going to be in my hometown in front of the fans that supported me for so long. He’s going to run his first race there in March. But the first of what looks to be about eight races this year will happen at Kern in the Pro Late Model on the CARS Tour West, May 31st.”

Keelan Harvick is on his way to having a memorable racing career just like his father. In his NASCAR Cup Series career, Kevin Harvick won 60 races and earned 444 top-10 finishes in 826 starts. He won the Cup Series regular-season championship in 2020 and the Cup Series Championship in 2014.

On3’s Jonathan Howard contributed to this story.