This Week's No. 29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet Impala SS at Talladega
Superspeedway ... Kevin Harvick will pilot chassis No. 237 from the Richard
Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. This Chevy has raced in
all three 2009 restrictor-plate races this year at Daytona International
Speedway and Talladega. This racer had finishes of second in the Daytona
500, 38th at Talladega in April and 26th in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona in
July.
Stat Facts for the Track ... In 17 NSCS starts at the 2.66-mile, high-banked
trioval, Harvick has earned three top-five and seven top-10 finishes, won
the pole in May 2005 and led 10 races for a total of 78 laps. He has
completed 3,127 of 3,210 (97.4 percent) laps contested, posting an average
start of 23.3 and a 16th-place average finish. To his credit, the
Bakersfield, Calif. native has a best finish of second at Talladega, which
he achieved in both the April 2003 and October 2004 races.
2009 in Rear View Mirror ... In 32 NSCS starts this season, Harvick has an
average starting position of 20.9 and an average finish of 20.8 while
completing 9,135 of the 9,388 laps contested (97.2 percent), posting three
top-five and seven top-10 finishes.
Making Points ... As a result of their seventh top-10 finish last week at
Martinsville Speedway, Harvick & Co. are within 49 points of 20th place with
four races remaining in the 2009 season.
KEVIN HARVICK:
When you race at Talladega, do you get a sense of when trouble is brewing on
the race track?
"You can kind of see when things are starting to happen and they are
probably a little bit questionable. Sometimes you can see it coming, and
sometimes it just happens and it's all over with before you even realized
what happened. It all happens really, really fast regardless of whether you
see it coming, or not."
NASCAR has mandated a slightly smaller restrictor plate for the
superspeedways this year. Will it make much of a difference in the racing
action on the track?
"I think the smaller plate is just one of those things where NASCAR looks at
the speed and the small change won't be very noticeable. About the only
places there might be a noticeable change will be in the miles-per-hour in
qualifying."
After what you saw during the last lap when we were here earlier this year,
what do you think caused that wreck?
"To be honest with you, I think blocking caused that wreck at the end of the
last race at Talladega. Brad (Keselowski -- race winner) was up underneath
Carl (Edwards) and they were coming to the checkered flag. Obviously, as the
race leader, you're not going to let out of the gas. So, blocking usually
causes a majority of the wrecks that happen on superspeedways. The cars
don't cause the wrecks."
-credit: rcr
