Kevin Harvick predicts winner of NASCAR Cup race at COTA

Through the first two weeks of the season NASCAR has taken on superspeedways, but this week the drivers will turn their attention to a different style of racing: the road course at COTA.

The annual event gives drivers the chance to flex a different set of muscles.

And with that, we frequently get a winner from a different subset of drivers. So who will win this week at COTA? Kevin Harvick and his co-hosts on the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast picked their winners.

“I’m going to take William Byron,” Harvick himself said. “I think that he just notoriously has the early season mojo to get into victory lane. Has done well on the road courses. So I’m going to go 24.”

Byron has had a mixed set of appearances thus far, heading into COTA. He won the Daytona 500 after putting together a terrific last few laps.

Then he finished P27 at Atlanta.

He was in contention Sunday until late in the race, when Kyle Larson made contact with Austin Cindric and Cindric came down from the wall and met Byron, who was drifting a little too far up the track. Both Cindric and Byron spun out and were effectively removed from contention.

But what about Harvick’s co-hosts? Each had a different pick for COTA winner.

“I’m picking SVG (Shane Van Gisbergen), and I mentioned at the bold predictions that I thought he was going to win multiple Cup races,” Kaitlyn Vincie said. “But I think he could be one of the guys this weekend. What say you to that, Mamba?”

Fellow co-host Mamba Smith then weighed in with his pick for COTA.

“I think I talked myself into it. I’m going with the kid,” Smith said. “Give me Connor Zilich. Give me Connor Zilich. No hold back, Connor Zilich first Cup race. Because I was thinking about it while I was sitting there, he’s already won at a high level. He knows what he’s doing, so he’s as prepared as anyone.”

Harvick seemed to weigh that carefully before lending some extra support to the Zilich pick to win COTA.

“You’ve got to remember this kid has raced on a world-class level with, they’ve raced all over the world in carts,” Harvick said. “He’s run sports cars, late models, Xfinity cars, trucks, and he’s been fast in everything that he’s done. He’ll be fast again. It’s just a different level.”