Kevin Harvick says Dale Earnhardt's passing 'instantly started' his career on a different trajectory

The death of Dale Earnhardt was one of the most impactful moments in the history of NASCAR. That included having a massive and instant impact on the career of Kevin Harvick.

While talking to Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, Harvick explained that he had a deal completely changed because of the trajectory his career went following Earnhardt’s death.

“I think back to 1996 and if I said, ‘OK, I’m just gonna stay here and race with the family team and not go to work for Wayne and Connie Spears to be the mechanic,’ or if I don’t say, ‘OK, I’m going to leave Wayne and Connie Spears and go to work for Jim Herrick and Brad Daugherty at the 98 truck.’ There are six or seven hard decisions along the way,” Kevin Harvick said. “But for me, that moment of Earnhardt passing (in 2001) and taking over the No. 3 car — you just look at how different of a trajectory that puts you on as far as what I did and where I went.”

Earnhardt died at the 2001 Daytona 500. It was a three-car crash and he ended up on the infield grass. He would later be pronounced dead at Halifax Medical Center.

At the time, Kevin Harvick was fairly new to NASCAR but already becoming one of the top drivers in the sport. However, things changed for Harvick when Earnhardt died. Richard Childress Racing decided to have him replace Earnhardt, an almost impossible task.

“You wonder what it would have been like if you just worked with that group of guys that you worked with through the Busch Series days and went into Cup with the natural move through the series and through your career,” Harvick said.

“(After Earnhardt died), it just all instantly started, and you had your biggest press conference, and you had your biggest win, and you had your biggest moments and things to work through in the very first year — instead of that natural progression through the ranks. So that Earnhardt moment for me is just so much different than everybody else in the way I started my career. You just wonder what that would have looked like if Earnhardt didn’t have his accident.”

Three weeks after that fateful Daytona 500, Kevin Harvick won his first Winston Cup race. Driving around the track after the race, he paid tribute to Earnhardt by putting three fingers out his window.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently had a scary incident

At the Food City 300 at Bristol, Dale Earnhardt Jr. got into a scary incident. His car caught on fire and it ended his night early.

Luckily, everything was fine in the end, and it seemed like he had a good attitude about the incident after the fact. Despite frustrations about not getting a chance to get a good finish, he joked about the burnt hole in his suit.

"We got a hole in my pants."@DaleJr on the fire that ended his night early, and the fun he had at @ItsBristolBaby. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/ng8DR5XL4s

— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) September 16, 2023

“We got a hole in my pants,” Earnhardt Jr. joked. “Somehow the shift control caught on fire. Saw some smoke in the car. I smelt it, and I said, ‘I hope that’s not me,’ but that last lap, I saw a big fire ball down in the tunnel, in the car. I felt it, obviously. My uniform was burning up. I was like, I can’t keep going. I’ve got to stop. Usually when you stop, the fires get bigger. So I pulled over by the pit stall, and some of those guys are pretty alert, and they helped me out.”

After the incident, it was announced that NASCAR would be investigating Earnhardt Jr.’s firesuit.