Sunday at Darlington Raceway, FOX Sports Analysts Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer took two ceremonial laps in vintage Wood Brothers Racing Cars. However, on this week’s episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick revealed that the pre-race laps didn’t go as smoothly as you may think.
Everybody, except maybe Chase Elliott, loves NASCAR Throwback Week. The event at Darlington features classic paint schemes, driver appearances, and flashbacks to NASCAR’s past. This year, FOX Sports analysts Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer took on the Lady in Black in two classic cars from Wood Brothers Racing.
While Bowyer followed Harvick in a 1981 Ford Thunderbird, Harvick drove around one of WBR’s most important cars, a 1971 Mercury that NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson drove to a Darlington win in his debut with WBR in 1972.
The two laps the drivers took around Darlington were cool moments for fans and TV viewers. While the two joked about the amount of sweat they accumulated in the vintage cars under the South Carolina sun, nobody seemed to talk about Harvick’s comment about the brakes, or lack thereof, in his Mercury.
Mid-lap and coming down the front stretch of Darlington, Harvick said on air, “I’m not sure what they’ve got going on here, but they don’t realize the brakes in this thing aren’t very good.” While this was a self-explanatory problem, Harvick revealed on Tuesday’s episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour that there was a little more to it than meets the eye.
Harvick described the freaky situation as he and Bowyer approached the Darlington Raceway staff tearing down the stage from pre-race ceremonies to Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith:
“Apparently, the people on the front stretch that were taking down the stage and doing everything didn’t realize that we were going to do two laps. Well, when we got back around to the front stretch, they were not paying attention, and we were approaching them at a high rate of speed, and I went to hit the brake pedal, and the brake pedal had no friction.. it freaked me out.” — Kevin Harvick
Though Harvick was clearly able to get the car slowed down, the former Cup Series Champion went on to describe the surreal feeling he had when he realized that the brakes were not all there. “I was thinking to myself, ‘my God, I’m gonna mow this guy over, and the truck in front of me that’s leading us around this pace lap and all those people on the front straightway taking these cables up are in harm’s way,’ Harvick said.
Despite this moment of panic, Harvick was able to laugh about his momentary crisis, stating that while they were going fast, it was still slow enough for the long-time racer to analyze what was happening. “I was going slow enough to where I had time to analyze that situation and then try to navigate my way through the scenario,” Harvick said.
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