Kevin Harvick breaks down twists and turns of NASCAR Chicago Street Course
Kevin Harvick believes that Turn 4 will be the most challenging part to navigate of the Chicago Street Course during Sunday’s Grant Park 220.
“I look at [Turns] 7-10 as technical,” Harvick told NASCAR.com Saturday. “I don’t view that as — I think Turn 4 is the most challenging because of how rough it is, how little runoff space there is. Coming into [Turn] 3, into that breaking zone into [Turn 4], and there’s just not a lot of runoff. At the entry to Turn 4, if you miss it and then that wall is just so narrow and the way that the street falls off right there off camera — just kind of sucks you into that outside wall.”
The 47-year-old Harvick had issues during Saturday’s qualifying session, smacking the inside wall at the entrance of Turn 1. His No. 4 Ford shot to the outside wall resulting in a head-on collision. Harvick will start 35th after crashing out during qualifying, his worst starting position of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season.
In his final full-time season in the Cup Series, Harvick sits sixth in the points standings. Though winless, he’s recorded seven top 10s and four top 5s.
Kevin Harvick gives his opinion of Chicago Street Race
Speaking with the media this weekend, Harvick said he’s going into the Chicago Street Race with an open mind.
“I think you have to because I made the mistake at the [L.A.] Clash the first time we went when I thought it was going to be a disaster, and it turned into a great event and a great race,” Harvick said, via Kelly Crandall of Racer. “I think you have to just do it because you just don’t know, you just don’t know how these types of things are going to turn out. So an open mind definitely is better than walking in just trying to figure out how to make it fail and trying to figure out all the flaws in it because there are going to be things that probably don’t go 100 percent right.
“But going through all these new types of events kind of changes your mindset to how you approach it because you see the enthusiasm, right? You can feel it. You can see it… Definitely don’t have this many colleagues sitting in your press room on a weekly basis, so there’s obviously something different this week that moves the needle.”