Accolades continue following Kevin Harvick into retirement. In the inaugural 2023 ‘Fan Choice Awards’, the former Stewart-Haas Racing icon won the award for the ‘Best Paint Scheme’ for his #29 car in the All-Star race at North Wilkesboro in May. Considering that this was his final year racing in the top series, going back to the car in which it all started for him back in 2001 was a proper tearjerker for both fans and the driver.

Now that the season is over and fans have rewarded him for giving them such a memorable showcase, he opens up about how he executed the throwback scheme in the All-Star race.

Kevin Harvick reveals the behind-the-scenes of his display in the #29 car

For 13 years from 2001 to 2013, Kevin Harvick drove the #29 Chevy of Richard Childress Racing. In more than one way, the car laid the foundation for the icon that he has now become. Though his only championship in the Cup Series came with the #4 car of Stewart-Haas Racing, his career came full circle only when he got back behind the iconic Busch-sponsored #29 Chevy that he first stepped foot into as a Cup Series rookie.

Harvick spoke on SiriusXM radio about how he made it happen. He narrated the incident that went on during one of SHR’s team meetings prior to the North Wilkesboro return. Harvick said, “I walked into the meeting with, ‘Hey, by the way, at the All-Star race, I wanna run the #29 car.’ Everybody looked around and said ‘Well, let’s talk about that’. So, I followed up… and SHR had everything figured out. They asked, ‘Who is gonna call Richard?’, and I said, ‘I am going to call Richard.'”

Continuing about his phone call to Richard Childress, and the team owner’s extraordinary response, he said, “He said, ‘Kevin…You meant a lot to RCR. We have a great relationship, and you can do whatever you want.’ Since that day SHR and RCR have worked on this program and here we are.” While Kevin Harvick is certainly the man behind bringing back a gist of the golden days back in 2023 for once, Richard Childress ought to be appreciated for acting as catalyst to the entire sequence.

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The legacy of the #29 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

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It was behind the #29 car that Kevin Harvick won his first Cup Series race back in 2001 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. The event was only his third-ever start with Richard Childress’ team. As the racing world is well aware, the #3 RCR team echoes the name of Dale Earnhardt Sr to this day. During Harvick’s Cup win, it was the #3 car that was rebranded as the #29, following Earnhardt’s death in the Daytona 500 earlier that year.

Facing the toughest of pressures on his young shoulders, Harvick had edged past Jeff Gordon by 0.006 seconds to prove his capability of living up to the Earnhardt name. He said this year before the All-Star race, as per motorsport.com, “Looking back on it now, I realize the importance of getting in the Cup car, and then I wound up winning my first race at Atlanta in the No. 29 car after Dale’s death. The significance and the importance of keeping that car on the race track and winning that race early at Atlanta – knowing now what it meant to the sport, and just that moment in general of being able to carry on – was so important.”

Apart from underlining his own professional achievements through his comeback in the #29 car, he’d also freshened up memories of the sport’s ultimate legend in the process. Perhaps that is why fans picked his scheme as the best of the year amidst tough contests from the likes of 23XI Racing and Trackhouse Racing. If nothing else, Kevin Harvick’s hat tip to the legacy of Dale Earnhardt will keep him a loved icon in the eyes of NASCAR.

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