The driving part of Kevin Harvick’s NASCAR career might have ended in November, but another part has come full circle.
Harvick has fully transitioned to the Fox Sports booth as one member of its three-person broadcast team calling NASCAR Cup Series races. It’s familiar territory for Harvick, who spent the last nine years appearing in the booth for the company as a guest analyst during Xfinity Series races. Harvick, in fact, was the first driver to take up the invitation to appear in the booth for Xfinity Series races, doing so in the 2015 season-opener at Daytona International Speedway.
“I think when I started doing that, people started to realize, ‘Uh oh, he’s getting way more exposure than me,’ and the sponsors started asking questions, and people wanted to know how they could get into the booth and how they could start doing those things,” Harvick said. “When you look at that value that comes with being in the booth from a driver’s perspective and the added value that it gives your sponsor, it’s just free added value. It may take a little bit of work, but the willingness to go up there and do that allows you to get those extra things and benefits that come with being in the booth as far as exposure goes.”
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Harvick lived by the philosophy that a driver needed to have more going on than just driving the car. He also believes an opinion carries more weight when heard in more places. So, he got the chance to speak to the media in the garage and then to everyone watching an Xfinity Series broadcast where he had a microphone.
“People get to know your face,” Harvick continued. “When you’re driving, a lot of times you’re a car and a number and a sponsor and maybe you’re not as recognizable outside of the race car as you need to be. So that face time on air is important for people to get to know who that person is. You get to hear a different side of their personality and understand a little bit more of how they tick. Are they a thought process person? Are they a funny person? Are they serious? Are they not serious? Are they mean?
“Whatever that is, you get to learn more about them. For Fox, there’s not a losing part to it because you have your current athletes that are in the booth and talking about what’s actually going on on the racetrack and what they’re going through. And usually right from practice. So, you get that fresh perspective right off the racetrack from practice or qualifying to come right into the booth and give you some insight on what’s happening on that particular day. It’s a win for everybody.”
It didn’t take Harvick long to realize he enjoyed being on television. He went from being a guest analyst in the rotation to leading the broadcast when Fox Sports introduced the ‘Drivers Only’ concept, where each position on the broadcast from those in the booth to the pit road reporters is filled by a Cup Series driver. Harvick was included in the conversation that sparked the ‘Drivers Only’ idea.
Finding himself comfortable in the broadcast booth, Harvick knew in the early days of being on the NASCAR on Fox broadcasts that it was a potential next career.
“I think that started pretty quick after we started doing the broadcasts with Fox, just realizing that, hey, this isn’t too bad, and I think you’re going to be OK at doing this,’’ Harvick said of realizing he wanted to make a career change. “The people around you, Pam [Miller, NASCAR Producer] especially, Jacob Ullman [Senior Vice President, Production and Talent Development], and all the folks at Fox were like, ‘Hey, this might not be a bad avenue to do this.’”
Harvick announced his retirement from full-time competition in January 2023. A month later, Fox Sports announced he would join Mike Joy and Clint Bowyer in the Cup Series broadcast booth beginning in 2024.
“It’s like when we started the (SiriusXM) radio show,” Harvick said of the Happy Hours show that aired from 2017 through 2019. “I called Jacob and said, ‘Hey, I think I’m going to do this radio show,’ and the first thing he said was, ‘That would be great. It keeps you in the game, and it has a lot of benefits to what you would do on television (and) how to do an interview.’
“So that played out (recently). I had to do my first interview – it was with Kyle Busch in person for television. But I’d already done … we’d interviewed a ton of people on the radio show, just not in person, so getting that experience and doing those things has carried a lot of value throughout the years because (I) had a lot of reps.”
The Busch Light Clash at the L.A. Coliseum was Harvick’s first race in the broadcast booth for the Cup Series. Sunday, he will call his first Daytona 500 for the company.
“It definitely is something that we’ve talked about for a long time of being in the Cup booth and seeing it all play out and actually happen for the first at The Clash,” Harvick said. “It really has been fun because it’s something different to learn the inside working of how you fit in and the things that you do because I know pretty much everybody because of the process that I went through with everybody at Fox with ‘Drivers Only’ and starting together in 2001 (when Fox entered NASCAR). I know so many people that I deal with inside the TV compound now; I don’t have to get to know Clint because we’ve known each other for such a long time, and everybody feels comfortable helping, which makes the process a lot easier because they know you, and everyone is not scared to give their opinion of how you’re doing or, what you can do better or what’s coming next.
“I think that the progression of everything that we did through the years leading to now has paid off huge because of the fact of the relationship that you built and the experience we’ve been given. So, it’s fun to see all that come full circle and have the benefits that it has with stepping into the booth.”