Tony Stewart glad to be back in a Kevin Harvick Inc. Nationwide car
Tony Stewart will compete in Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway for Kevin Harvick Inc. // Dale Barbee, NASCAR Scene
FORT WORTH, Texas – It’s up to Tony Stewart to keep the Kevin Harvick Inc. momentum going this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.
KHI is on a roll, with team co-owner Kevin Harvick winning the Nationwide Series race two weeks ago at Bristol Motor Speedway and then winning again Monday in the Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway. Now Stewart replaces Harvick in the No. 33 car for a one-race Nationwide deal.
Stewart won the first Nationwide race in KHI history when he claimed the victory in the 2005 season-opener at Daytona. He has driven 31 times in the series for KHI, but his last outing came in September 2007 at Kansas. He obviously couldn’t run any last season because of Joe Gibbs Racing’s move to Toyota, but Stewart is back in a Chevrolet on the Cup side and now can drive for KHI again.
“I still remind him that I won in my second [actually third] time out in his car, and it took him 40-some-odd races to win in his own car, so he hasn’t put any pressure on me,” Stewart joked Wednesday. “That’s something that’s fun to come back [to], and I’m glad we had the opportunity to come back and drive for him and [wife] DeLana this year. We had so much [fun] running with them before, and they’re really good friends of mine.”
This is the only Nationwide race Stewart has planned to drive for KHI this year. He won the season-opening Nationwide race for Hendrick Motorsports and will drive for JR Motorsports in the October race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Running Nationwide events isn’t as beneficial to Cup drivers as it was a few years ago when the cars were more similar.
“The only thing you can learn is about the tire, but that’s about it,” Stewart said. “If you learn something tire-pressure wise, you might be able to transfer it over. Beside from that, the package is so different now with the [new model Cup] car, that you really can’t transfer anything over.”
Stewart, in his first year as driver and co-owner at Stewart-Haas Racing, doesn’t anticipate owning a Nationwide Series team soon, even when the series moves in the next few years to using a new car that could use current Cup chassis and parts and pieces.
“Right now, we’re still trying to get two [Sprint Cup] teams running really well,” Stewart said. “We’re gaining on that. We want two teams that are capable of running for a championship. I feel like that’s more important right now. We, as an organization, want to have a third and fourth car eventually. That probably is going to take a priority versus trying to build a Nationwide program.”
