Jamie McMurray remembers giving Kevin Harvick a quick rundown on go-karts. Nothing fancy, just the basics, the kind of conversation two NASCAR guys have in a parking lot. Six months later, Harvick showed up with a karting trailer that made McMurray’s jaw drop.
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“It was the nicest karting trailer I’ve ever seen in my life,” McMurray said. “A couple more zeros than three grand. Had two employees full-time.”
That’s the moment McMurray realized something most fans already suspected. Kevin Harvick doesn’t do anything halfway. I think he’s the extreme example of all in,” McMurray said. “Kevin’s mentality is, ‘We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna do it right.'”
How far did “all in” go? Harvick sent his son Keelan to Italy by himself. He was 12. “And, I’ve old Kevin, I couldn’t be more jealous. I would have loved to have done that with Carter,” McMurray admitted. “But the financial commitment he had to make was huge.”
McMurray has watched plenty of racing dads make that same bet, only to see their kid switch to basketball two years later. Keelan didn’t switch. He kept winning, at every level he touched.
Here’s the part that makes the contrast so sharp. Harvick’s own racing career started with a kart his father built for around $3,000 in Bakersfield, California. Young Kevin balanced the team’s checkbook himself and called local sponsors just to keep gas in the tank.
Keelan’s path looks nothing like that. He made his go-kart debut at seven. He then spent years racing internationally in Europe. A brutal crash in Italy, witnessed by F1 star Charles Leclerc, pushed the family back toward American stock cars. Once home, Keelan ran wild. He won the 2024 INEX Young Lions title with 27 victories in 49 starts. In 2025, he won Pro Late Model races on both the zMAX CARS Tour and CARS Tour West in the same season. Nobody had done that before. By December, he was the youngest-ever winner of the Snowflake 125.
In February 2026, Keelan signed a long-term development deal with Toyota Racing Development. He now drives the No. 62 Toyota, a number chosen to honor his late grandfather, John Paul Linville. Toyota’s TD2 program gives him access to sports psychologists, nutritionists, and simulator data most 13-year-olds will never see. The roadmap is already mapped out, Late Models, ARCA, the Truck Series, and eventually the Cup Series. It’s timed perfectly for his first legal Daytona 500 in 2031.
Kevin Harvick isn’t micromanaging any of it, either. He calls himself the gatekeeper. He builds the infrastructure, then steps back. Keelan writes a full debrief after every race, and Harvick reads it just to understand how his son thinks. He even races against him. At Kern Raceway last June, Keelan beat his own father for a Pro Late Model win.
Meanwhile, Harvick turned his attention towards another Toyota talent, who is touted to replace Denny Hamlin at JGR.
Harvick warns JGR against making the Connor Zilisch mistake
Denny Hamlin has a contract with JGR until the end of the 2027 season. This means, in case Hamlin decides he wants to call it quits with his Cup racing career, the team would need to find a rightful heir for the #11 car. As things stand, Brent Crews is touted as the driver who could replace Hamlin at JGR.
While this move looks sensible on paper, Crews lack the experience and the skill set to be able to take such a responsibility. At least, that is what Kevin Harvick thinks.
“I think that he has the talent, and I think that he’s doing exactly what we all thought he would do. But I’m gonna be a little more cautious because of what has happened to Connor Zillich. I think that Connor’s in a spot with Trackhouse where everything’s not together for him from the car side to be competitive.” Harvick said on the Speed channel.
And he’s not entirely wrong. Zilisch had a record-breaking 10-win season in the O’Reilly Series, but his transition to the Cup Series has been like a worst nightmare. He’s finished 7 races, 30th or worse, driving the No. 88 Trackhouse Chevy. And he looks lost driving the Cup car, which is different from the O’Reilly machine.
Brent Crews hasn’t even kick-started his winning run; he’s shown glimpses of his talent, but nothing as we saw with Corey Heim. The best-case scenario for JGR would be to lock Hamlin in for another year, as he’s on a winning spree despite his age, and allow Crews to spend more time in the feeder series. There are a lot of ifs and buts involved in this deal, and Hamlin’s decision is going to be crucial for any move JGR makes for the #11 car.
