NASCAR Cup Series

Harvick no longer intimidated by Earnhardt legacy

Published Aug. 17, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Kevin Harvick may joke that he doesn’t act his age – and could therefore be more appealing to the young crowd new sponsor Budweiser courts – but in both his racing and his personal conduct, he clearly shows signs of his maturity.

On Tuesday, Harvick and his Richard Childress Racing team announced that Budweiser would sponsor the driver’s NASCAR Sprint Cup campaign beginning with the 2011 season. Both the corporation and RCR have long and storied histories in the sport, making them a natural fit together.

Yet it is Harvick who smoothly bridges the gap between a strong past and a promising future – for both the organization and the race team.

A matured driver both well-respected in the garage and more comfortable with taking over famous roles and tailoring them to his own personality. Therefore, he has no qualms about representing a sponsor that has backed Darrell Waltrip, Bill Elliott and perhaps, most famously, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Budweiser says it has no doubts that Harvick, 34, fits their brand well. Harvick, for his part, says he doesn’t plan to change at all. In reality, though, his 10-year relationship with Childress is highlighted by constant growth by the driver – both as a professional and through his role as co-owner of Kevin Harvick Inc.

And Harvick, the man who in 2001 took over the team made famous by Dale Earnhardt, now once more adds his own identity to something still linked, in fans minds, to an Earnhardt.

While it might have once bothered him to be compared to a piece of the past, or shifting an established identity, it no longer seems to be an issue.

“If you’re going to be successful in the sport, especially at RCR, you’re going to have all those ties forever,” Harvick said. “That used to bother me, but I’ve learned that if you’re going to be a part of this company and you’re going to be successful in this sport, those ties are always going to be there and you learn to just kind of take that as a compliment instead of being frustrated about it. If you can do anything that Dale Earnhardt did in a car, you’re doing something OK.”

He admits that in the beginning, that wasn’t always an easy comparison to carry. His entire 2001 season, a year when he stepped into the Childress car left vacant by the sudden loss of Earnhardt in the Daytona 500, was marked by comparison and commentary. It’s a comparison that has cropped up through the years and one that Harvick now seems to embrace as part of his fan identity.

“It took me a long time because I had always kind of beaten my own path, and everything had the Earnhardt connection to it, but after a while, it’s just … like anything else, as you grow in life you learn who you are and what you do and you learn how things work and it’s really more of a compliment than it is degrading,” he said. “So it’s something that I just learned after a while.”

When Childress looks at the driver he’s worked with since 2001, he sees a man who has grown comfortable with his role in the sport, a driver who has grown and matured in a very public platform – and turned into someone any sponsor would embrace and someone well-respected in the Cup garage.

“It’s like all of us; we all mature with age and experience,” Childress said. “As you go through different experiences in life, you look back and you say, ‘Man, why did I do that?’ or ‘Why did I say that?’ and you try to be a better person, a better representative and all that. I think just watching that with Kevin is one of the neatest things is watch how he’s matured.

“Now he knows his responsibility as a driver in the sport. It comes with time. I can remember (the way) Dale Earnhardt was in ‘79 and ‘80 and ‘81, he went through some of the same stuff, it took him a few years to figure it out.”

Harvick still plans to beat his own path though. And Budweiser, which admits that it was both Harvick’s competitive fire and personality that they found alluring, plans to just let him keep being himself – a personality that fans have embraced more strongly over the years.

“I feel like they want me to be who I am and do the things that I normally do and, for the most part, I probably don’t act my age anyway so that’ll be pretty easy for me to do in those particular scenarios,” Harvick said. “We’re going to have fun with it, go out and race the car hard and do the things that we need to do off the race track to make it successful for everybody.”

As to the sponsorship itself, Childress said that he’s been talking to the brand for several months and was pleased that not much word of the three-year contract leaked out very early. Budweiser will be the primary sponsor on Harvick’s No. 29 Chevrolet in 20 points races – and both non-points events – next season.

“I think he fits it very well,” Childress said of Harvick and Budweiser. “He’s a great spokesman for any brand. He did a great job and is still doing a great job with (current primary sponsor) Shell and Goodwrench and all the different sponsors we’ve had through the years … They’re going to carry RCR to a different level, I think, with the things they’ve got planned.”

Childress seemed both relieved to have landed sponsorship for next season, and more than just a little thrilled to have beaten out the competition for the prime sponsor to get the deal.

“We’re just proud when Budweiser went out and started doing their due diligence and looking at different teams and we did a presentation like several teams did and for us to be able to get the sponsorship, it really means a lot for our organization,” he said.

Budweiser, meanwhile, now faces joining forces with its third driver in four seasons. The brand has been famous, high-profile drivers over the years, but it was the association with Earnhardt Jr. that brought it new attention in the Cup ranks. In 2008, the company shifted over to Kasey Kahne’s Richard Petty Motorsports team. But with Kahne signed to join Hendrick Motorsports in 2012, and his 2011 plans only recently made clear, the sponsor began looking at its options.

Thry found Harvick, a three-time winner in the Cup ranks this season and a unique personality in his own right.

“I think he has a young attitude. ... I just think his approach is what we need,” said Mark Wright, vice president of media, sports and entertainment marketing, Anheuser-Busch.