Kevin Harvick ready to ‘pound’ Joe Gibbs Racing, defend championship

Having rolled off eight wins in the past 11 races, conventional wisdom says that Joe Gibbs Racing featuring drivers Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin should be regarded as prohibitive championship favorites.

Not so says defending Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick. And for anyone who thinks he’s going to concede his title without a fight when the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoffs begin Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway, he has message.

“I wouldn’t consider us behind the Gibbs cars,” Harvick said Thursday at Chase Media Day in downtown Chicago. “I think we’re going to pound them into the ground. That’s what I think.”

Exhibiting overwhelming dominance, JGR registered a series-best 11 victories during the regular season. Busch returned from missing the first 11 races with serious leg injuries to win four times, the same number as Kenseth, who recorded wins in three of the past six races. Carl Edwards’ two wins in came in two of NASCAR’s crown jewel events -- the Coca-Cola 600 and Southern 500 -- while Hamlin’s lone triumph came at Martinsville Speedway, which hosts a Round 3 Chase race.

That widespread success prompted the JGR camp to dismiss Harvick’s smack talk.

“We’ll go race and we’ll see how it turns out, but I think statistics and our performance lately speaks for itself,” Edwards said. “We’re pretty fast and that’s that.”

Said Busch: “I’d really hate to see him blow a motor here the first week. That would be really, really bad.”

Yet despite JGR’s frequent trips to Victory Lane, Harvick’s swagger isn’t without merit. He posted 10 second-place finishes in 26 regular-season races and led all drivers in top fives, top 10s, laps led and average finish. And along with Joey Logano of Team Penske, Harvick, whose two wins came back in March, has been able to keep pace with the JGR armada during its torrid streak.

“I don’t know that we’re better than them,” Harvick said. “I think for us, it’s all about having the experience. It’s really not about having the fastest car at this particular point. It’s about having experience to go out and handle the emotions of 10 weeks, and I think as you go into these 10 weeks you have to put it all together and there’s a lot more than racing to handle.

“We just go about our business and do our things. The cars are running good. I feel like we’re in a good spot. We’re in a way better spot than we were last year.”

NASCAR’s Chase format where the 16-driver field sees four eliminations every three races favors both winning and consistency. A win assures advancement to the subsequent round, but by accumulating the most points a driver can also proceed to the final race with a shot at the championship.

Harvick used each method to procure his first Sprint Cup title last season. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver easily made it out of the first round via points, and then used wins in the second and third segments -- the latter in a must-win situation -- to make the championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway where he again emerged victorious.

“He’s the only one who has won the Chase in this format,” Kenseth said. “The only way he was going to make it to Homestead (Miami Speedway) was to win Phoenix (Round 3) and obviously that’s a great track for him and he was able to win Phoenix. And then the only way to assure himself a championship is to win Homestead and did that, too.

“To able to do that in this format, to be behind and step up to the plate -- absolutely, I think that gives him an advantage.”