Harvick: Running Indy road course "terrible for our sport"

A widely-panned All-Star Race at Texas Motor Speedway two weeks ago was followed by racing last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway that received rave reviews. Both are 1.5-mile intermediate tracks.

On Friday at World Wide Technology at Gateway, Harvick was asked if he thought the high quality of racing seen at Charlotte, Las Vegas and Auto Club Speedway this season was enough reason for NASCAR to consider going back to running the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Cup Series ran the 2.5-mile IMS oval for 27 years from 1994 through 2020 but deteriorating attendance over the years saw NASCAR try different solutions, including running its lower horsepower, high downforce aero package and then moving the race to the IMS Road Course last season.

“It could be the greatest race on earth. What is the real ingredient that made Charlotte so much better than Texas? I don't know. I don’t think anybody knows. You just have to do it,” Harvick said. “I think that would be the only way you would find out.

“It is kind of a stumper to try to figure out exactly what the ingredients are that make a good race or a bad race and what tracks are good and what tracks are bad. I wish somebody could tell me because I would have bet a million dollars last week that Charlotte was going to be horrendous.

“Then all of a sudden we are running up on a part of the race track that we haven’t run in five or six years. I have quit trying to guess what my car is going to drive like, what race is going to be good, what race is going to be bad, because there is no rhyme or reason to it.”

NASCAR at the Brickyard

While Harvick admits trying to figure what the racing will look like each week this season is “trial and error,” he’s never been a fan of running the IMS Road Course.

“I hate driving into the Brickyard and driving backward down the straightaway and driving the road course,” he said.

“I think it is terrible for our sport and almost degrading to a certain degree that you take the best racing series in the country and take it to what most would consider one of the greatest race tracks in the world but race on the road course.”

Kevin Harvick, Stewart Haas Racing, Mobil 1 Triple Action Formula Ford Mustang

Photo by: Matthew T. Thacker / NKP / Motorsport Images

Still, Harvick realizes the decisions on where to run races – the future of the All-Star Race included – don’t rest with him.

“If it was mine, I would do things probably in a different way, but it is not mine, I just drive,” he said. “It is like I tell my son, make a couple billion dollars and then you can buy it and decide what the schedule looks like.

“I think you have to respect that part of it – other people’s decisions that are running businesses to what they think is appropriate.”