Kevin Harvick spent 23 years in the top flight of NASCAR, the Cup Series. Out of 23, he spent 13 years at Richard Childress Racing, under the guidance of Richard Childress. However, in the 13th year, he decided to leave RCR in search of performance, but did not want to make the exit disrespectful.

"Well, it was a pivotal moment in my life and career at that point," Harvick recently said on his "Happy Hour" podcast. "And DeLana (wife) knew I was miserable, kind of with the scenario of, of everything that was happening at RCR and not because you didn't like the people, it's just we couldn't get to where we wanted to be from a performance standpoint."

Having stayed at RCR for over a decade, Harvick did not win a championship, and his best result in the standings was third place in 2010, 2011, and 2013. With his championship dream unfulfilled, he wanted to explore other opportunities.

"And I did not want to disrespect Richard from the standpoint, from a personal relationship standpoint, because he gave me so many opportunities. But it was just at a point where I'd spent 13, at that point, 12 years of my, of my life there. And it was, it was starting to get, it was just starting to get messy," Harvick further added.

Kevin Harvick decided to break away from RCR despite having one and a half years left on his contract, and it surely took a toll on Mr. Childress, given the kind of driver Harvick was. In 2014, Harvick moved to Stewart-Haas Racing.

His arrival to the new team was immediately successful as he claimed five victories that season, and picked up the 2014 Cup Series title. Harvick went on to race for SHR till the end of his NASCAR Cup Series career in 2023.

Emotional Richard Childress Let His Feelings Known Amid Kevin Harvick's Exit

At the end of the 2013 Homestead-Miami race, Richard Childress talked about how the time with Kevin Harvick passed quickly. To him, those 13 years went away in a "blink."

As Childress and Harvick stood before parting ways, Mr. Childress said, summing up Harvick's time at RCR,

"I'm sure y'all have heard that old song, 'Don't blink, 100 years goes by fast,' and this is just another chapter in life that we're all living," Childress said. "You've got to be tough to hang in there and make it, and we've did a lot together. We've won a lot. We've been through some tough times. But at the end of the day, 100 years go by awful fast."

During his 13-year stay at Richard Childress Racing, Kevin Harvick claimed 23 NASCAR Cup Series wins. After the tragic demise of Dale Earnhardt in 2001, Harvick slowly emerged as the poster boy of RCR and stayed that way for over a decade until his departure to SHR.

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Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Yask Kotak