Claim under review: Does Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast top the iCharts by Apple?

During the NASCAR Cup Series race, the Pennzoil 400 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Mike Joy, the renowned Fox broadcaster, claimed that Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast was at the top of iCharts under the sports category in the United States. Let’s investigate if the claim is true.

Is Kevin Harvick on top?

After the claim was made, we dived deep to find out if Kevin Harvick’s podcast was really on top. Apparently, there have been numerous NASCAR-based podcasts available to listen to, both on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour is one of them.

However, claiming that the Happy Hour podcast is topping the iCharts is too far-fetched. As per our findings, the Happy Hour podcast is nowhere in the top three, as The Carpool with Kelly and Lizz takes first place, followed by This Car POD! Doug deMuro is in the podcast list under cars.

Interestingly, in number three comes a podcast by Kevin Harvick. However, it’s not the Happy Hour; it is the Speed with Harvick and Will Buxton. Furthermore, when speaking about top American sports podcasts, Pardon My Take by Barstool Sports is at number one.

The Bill Simmons Podcast by The Ringer and The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz take the second and third positions, respectively. The first NASCAR podcast that comes within the top 25 is Dirty Mo Media’s The Dale Jr. Podcast by Dale Earnhardt Jr.

In the list, Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour was nowhere to be found among the top podcasts. Therefore, Mike Joy’s claim that Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast is statistically untrue.

Kevin Harvick, Mamba Smith, and Kaitlyn Vincie host the Happy Hour podcast regularly as FOX Sports backs it. It is indeed one of the top NASCAR podcasts, but it has formidable opponents.

The Happy Hour podcast often finds tough competition from The Actions Detrimental podcast by Denny Hamlin, the Teardown podcast by Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi, or Door Bumper Clear by Freddie Kraft and others.

Denny Hamlin broke Kevin Harvick’s NASCAR record

While there have been talks about Kevin Harvick‘s podcast being on top, at Las Vegas, it was Denny Hamlin who was on instead. The Joe Gibbs Racing star stormed back to the finish line as he picked up his maiden win of the season.

With this, Hamlin secured his 61st Cup win of his career and surpassed Harvick’s 60-win record. Sharing his thoughts on this, Harvick said after the race,

“Records are always going to be broken and changed, and Denny Hamlin is going to surpass that 60 by quite a margin, in my opinion, over the next couple of years. I think he’s going to be in his mid-60s or 70s by the time he’s done.”

Kevin Harvick amassed 60 Cup wins in 826 races over 23 years, while Denny Hamlin took 100 fewer races to cross the margin in 22 years. While Harvick retired from the sport in 2023, one can expect Hamlin to race in the upcoming years.