Kevin Harvick Prepares For Nascar On Fox Gig After Nascar Retirement

Nascar champion Kevin Harvick is preparing for the biggest change of his professional career. It’s bigger than when he began racing full time in the Cup Series for Richard Childress Racing, and it’s larger than becoming the ace driver at Stewart-Haas Racing.

Harvick is ready, and he’s excited about the next challenge of his life as he steps away from full-time Nascar racing at the end of the season.

“I have no regrets,” Harvick said, reflecting on his retirement.

The decision, he said, mulled over his head for the last five years before finally deciding now is the right time to hang up his helmet. The man who’s been one of the voices of the garage area for the last few years is now set to be the voice of Nascar on TV. He’s headed to the Nascar on Fox booth, where he’ll serve as an analyst alongside play-by-play announcer Mike Joy and former teammate Clint Bowyer.

“Every week has been like, ‘That was the last Daytona 500, the last Coke 600,’” Harvick said. “I haven’t gotten out of the car once and said, ‘I don’t know if this is the right thing to do.’ Part of that is because I know I’ll be sitting in the TV booth next year. We have all of our business in line, the structure for everything we have and our people. It’s a great time to transition and be part of what my kids have going on, and I’ll help DeLana with them. I’m enjoying every week, but I’m not disappointed it’s the last one.”

Harvick is having a solid final season with Stewart-Haas Racing. He is only one of two Ford drivers — the other being Ryan Blaney — to rank in the top 10 in the standings through the first 15 races.

Currently, Harvick is on pace to perform better in his final season than four-time Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon did in his 2015 retirement tour. That season, Gordon won his final event with just four races left in the season, locking him into the championship battle for the last time. Gordon ended his final full season with five top fives and 21 top 10s with a 13.7 average finish.

Harvick has shown that age hasn’t slowed him down one bit. As the leader of Stewart-Haas Racing, he’s been the one to find speed while his three teammates sit 25th or worse in the standings, though Chase Briscoe received one of the biggest penalties in Nascar history following the Coca-Cola 600 and was docked 120 points.

But even with strong performances to start the year, Harvick is not changing his decision. He will not pull a Tom Brady and return for another final chapter.

“As we’ve gone to each race, we really started planning and put the pieces in play about a year ago to officially say there is no more maybe and there’s no more extensions,” Harvick said. “This is it.”

Harvick may be even busier in his post-driving career than he is at the moment.

KHI Management, his sports management firm, is expanding. The pieces are in place to have Harvick himself take on an enhanced role, serving as a mentor for the athletes and drivers he works with. Among the firm’s clients are potential future drivers at SHR, including Harrison Burton, Todd Gilliland and, most recently, Josh Berry. Berry, who drives for JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series and filled in for Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman with Hendrick Motorsports in the Cup Series this year, is reportedly finalizing a deal to take over Harvick’s car in 2024.

The team at KHI, which includes three people who have worked with Harvick for 25 years, have been hard at work for the last year to prepare him for what’s next. And he leaned on SHR co-owner Tony Stewart about how to actually enjoy his final season.

“We put logos into place for racetracks, fans and merchandise,” Harvick said. “We really put a lot of pieces into play for the small things that we didn’t want to creep up as we started the season. Stewart-Haas Racing has been a huge part of everything that we have going on because of everything they did with Tony.

“Getting advice from Tony and everybody on his team about things they did like and didn’t like, how they did things, what was the most distracting. Our goal from the beginning was to make sure the distractions didn’t get in the way of the competition.”

Along with his Nascar on Fox gig, Harvick will be traveling to his son’s races. Until now, he’s only seen 11-year-old Keelan Harvick compete in Europe twice. Now, it’s time to focus on being a dad and a coach.

Harvick said, “Being able to spend more time with his racing and watch Piper do what she wants to do and not have my wife look at me with the evil eye while she’s traveling to watch Keelan race. I want to have flexibility in my schedule to spend more time with all of them. They’re at a pivotal point in their lives where they need both of their parents to be part of it as much as possible. Getting out of the competition side allows me to have some flexibility in my schedule.”

To top it off, Harvick is also one of the new owners of the CARS Tour, alongside Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton and Justin Marks.

“I’ll probably be busier, but it’s a different busy,” Harvick said. “This is the part that’s hard for people to understand: you see Sunday and you see the race, but you don’t see all of the work during the week.

“Not being responsible for that competitive mindset will make my brain function a lot easier. That’s the main part that will free up the mental capacity that’s absorbed from the competition side. The only way to be good at this is to do it everyday and be involved with it at a high level, because the more details you can cover and the better that’s structured, the better you’re going to be.”

As Harvick prepares for the second half of the Nascar season, his eyes are on the championship trophy. There’s only one way for him to go out, he believes, and that’s on top.