Since NASCAR‘s next stop is at Watkins Glen, it will be difficult not to bring up Trackhouse Racing superstars Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch. Both proved themselves last year in the Cup and O’Reilly Series, respectively. But Kevin Harvick feels this year might not be their year.

Tough times lie ahead for road course masters

While discussing the upcoming NASCAR weekend, he made a blunt admission about the Trackhouse Racing stars on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour. “When you’re not running good, it’s hard to bring a good horse to the place that you’re supposed to bring a good horse. And I think that, you know, I think that they’re going to run well, but it’s just how good is the question. Yeah, they’re going to run good regardless, but how good?”

Harvick acknowledges the importance of this weekend for Trackhouse Racing. The team has been going through one of its worst spells since its debut in the Cup Series this weekend. All three of its cars ran out of the top 16, and its star rookie hasn’t posted a top-10 finish yet. With road course racing masters like Zilisch and SVG, the team was hoping to capitalize on victories in 2026.

Unfortunately, since the “win and in” system is no longer in play, it does not have a guaranteed spot even if they win a few races. Most of all, its cars cannot produce the pace necessary for its drivers to defeat the competition, even at their best tracks. The race at COTA was a prime example of the same difficulty.

Gisbergen kept chasing Tyler Reddick for the last stage of the race without committing a single mistake. Every time Reddick increased the gap to 0.6s or more, SVG would bring it down to 0.2-0.3 through the corners and esses. However, his cornering skills proved useless when Reddick hit the straightaways, accelerating far out of his reach.

Not only that, but the way Reddick has been performing this year, he has the momentum and the pace of the Toyotas to carry him forward. In COTA, Reddick was the pole sitter. His results at Watkins Glen are not bad either. In his five starts at Glen, he has posted four top 10s with a P9 finish last year.

Both Zilisch and SVG easily defeated the competition last year at Glen. While SVG won with a 38-lap lead starting from the front row, Zilisch won his first O’Reilly race for JR Motorsports. So the two already know how to find the best times around the circuit.

The question persists: Will Trackhouse Racing be able to provide them with the tools to win? After all, talent is meaningless if the car doesn’t have the power to back up the driver’s efforts. Trackhouse Racing drivers have regularly complained about loss of power on restarts and during the long straightaways on ovals.

The current Glen configuration features multiple long straights, which require drivers to have maximum power at their disposal. In that case, even if SVG or Zilisch takes the lead, either would need to defend it furiously or lose it immediately when their car tops out too soon.

So why is this track such a headache for NASCAR drivers? According to Harvick, it is a highly technical racetrack that requires precise braking.

Kevin Harvick breaks down the challenges presented by Watkins Glen

When asked by his co-host, Kaitlyn Vincie, about the racetracks, the 2006 winner explained that although Glen might be a fun track to drive on, its topology and braking points keep the driver highly alert: “Well, it all gets set up in turn two, and how you enter that corner and how you get to the exit of turn two?”

“Because if you don’t have the car positioned to the right side of the racetrack for turn three, then it hurts you all the way down into the bus stop, and so that dictates the speed that you carry down that back straightaway,” he added.

Harvick believes drivers who can manage their braking while being aggressive will master Watkins Glen. For the turns, they will have to counter the bumps and elevation changes that threaten to unbalance their car and abruptly change speed. Turn 1, for example, comes after a downhill section, requiring drivers to remember their braking points.

If they try to go too aggressively with late braking and miss it even slightly, the car will have gained enough speed to miss the corner entirely or ruin its run on its way toward Turn 2. So even though Glen only has 11 turns and 5 straights, it’s not like the drivers can keep their feet on the accelerator pedal and power through the course.