Kevin Harvick knows about speed. After all, the recently retired NASCAR driver won 60 races in the NASCAR Cup series in 826 starts and a NASCAR Cup championship in a Hall of Fame worthy career.
This year Harvick is transitioning to the Fox Sports NASCAR coverage where he will serve as a TV analyst alongside Mike Joy and fellow former driver Clint Bowyer.
Harvick’s wins include the Daytona 500 in 2007, a race he won by inches while his then teammate Bowyer’s Chevy came across the finish line upside down.
The season opening Daytona 500 race will be the first full race for Harvick in the booth. And while he has plenty of experience going fast, in the days leading up to the Daytona 500, Harvick had an experience with speed that was a first for him.
Harvick was invited to take flight in an F-16 with the USAF Thunderbirds demonstration team, a flight he will never forget.
“It’s definitely the most physically intense thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Harvick said. “We took off at the end of the runway and went straight up in the air and I’m like, ‘holy crap, what have I got myself into?’
Harvick was quick to add: “I didn’t pass out. I didn’t throw up. It was a great experience, and you know, it’s something that I’ve never done before because of the competitive side.”
“I didn’t know if I was going to come out of that thing walking sideways,” Harvick said pointing to Bowyer sitting beside him. “Like my compadre here said he was walking sideways when he got out of his.”
Harvick then added joking and turning to Bowyer: “So I have never actually got in one of the planes and you know, this was the first opportunity that I guess I could miss work. Is that okay?”
“You look pretty disheveled when you walked up,” Mike Joy quipped.
Bowyer was quick to add:
“Let me add a little context to this,” Bowyer said laughing. “When he got to the TV compound a little bit ago, we’ve all seen Jamie (Little, pit reporter) interview him after a race; a little bit of helmet head, right? The old hair’s sticking up, well a couple of them are. And today, buddy, it was straight up like, bud, you need to go to the wardrobe department and get something done with your hair, ’cause It was, it was bad. It was really bad.”
“It was intense,” Harvick said, “But I enjoyed it. That was my one and done. So that was; check that off.”
Always the one to get the last word, Bowyer added:
“He looked like he was going very fast.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.