The Closer, Kevin Harvick, was a guest on NASCAR Race Hub on FS1 Thursday Night to reveal a much-hyped announcement.
He teased us a little bit with announcing a throwback helmet he’ll be running this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he captured his first very emotional win in 2001 after the death of 7-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, Dale Earnhardt.
But that, of course, wasn’t the breaking news story. The main story was that “Happy” Kevin Harvick will run a number 29 car one last time as a throwback to that first win at Atlanta. The, for the most part, very accurate throwback will be sported at North Wilkesboro for the 2023 NASCAR All-Star Race.
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With North Wilkesboro returning to the Cup Series schedule this year (even though it is just for the All-Star race), many fans have questioned if this race would be the ultimate throwback event for the 2023 season rather than the spring Darlington race.
While throwbacks have been fairly common in the sport for many years, particularly in retirement seasons or races at Darlington, there wasn’t a sanctioned throwback weekend for the sport until 2015 for that year’s Southern 500. In 2022, the throwback weekend moved from that Labor Day Crown Jewel event to the spring.
It’ll be interesting to see if NASCAR will do Darlington Throwbacks this year or if they’ll be strictly regulated to another NASCAR OG track in North Wilkesboro. Only time will tell. Regardless, this No. 29 throwback HAS to be in contention for the best throwback of 2023…and the others haven’t even been released yet!
Kevin Harvick drove the No. 29 for the first 13 years of his Cup Series career. The 2023 throwback for the all-star race is the truest of All-Star throwbacks I’ve seen in the last few years. The only major difference is manufacturer and that’s pretty small potatoes compared to everything else.
As mentioned in the Race Hub video below, Kevin Harvick himself reached out to Richard Childress for his support in running this very special scheme.
RCR was very supportive of Harvick to run this scheme and number at North Wilkesboro. They even tweeted about it shortly before Harvick made his official announcement.
Kevin Harvick and RCR aren’t the only ones giving a throwback at this year’s North Wilkesboro race regarding the No. 4-turned No. 29 team. While Harvick’s sponsor from 2001, GM Goodwrench, isn’t a thing anymore, his current sponsor, Busch Light, will also throwback to their 2001 logo on the hood of the No. 29 SHR Ford.
In the response below, Busch pokes fun at their driver for getting emotional towards the end of the video.
The scheme reveal has gotten a lot of attention from fans, almost universally positive. Justin thinks 29 might just be Harvick’s lucky number considering his phone battery percentage…
Mike Cook, a clear Happy Harvick fan, thanks RCR for allowing his favorite driver to run this scheme.
The initial win this scheme pays tribute to stole Sue’s heart and the hearts of many others…
Denny Delivers on YouTube reacted to the news with this tweet:
It’ll be great to see this car on track again. We at the Daily Downforce expect many more throwback paying homage to Happy Harvick’s great career. #4Ever
Another race weekend in the books. While Ryan Blaney battled back from several pit road setbacks to win his second straight race at Phoenix, other drivers were much to be desired. It was a big win for Penske but for several others, they leave the first “real” race of the season scratching their head with a lot that they need to figure out. Here are the biggest losers of NASCAR’s Spring 2026 Phoenix race weekend.
I’m afraid that this is starting to be habitual. Another race weekend at RCR for Kyle Busch, another terrible result. Well, the finish wasn’t exactly awful. While 17th is hardly up to Kyle’s standards, it’s about as good as it gets anymore for the two-time champion who hasn’t won a race in nearly a hundred starts.
To start things off, there was a reason to be cautiously optimistic about the future of that RCR No. 8 Chevy. New crew chief. Personnel changes. A new Chevy body. He even scored the pole for the 68th running of the Daytona 500 last month. But, since then, it has been a sharp slope downward. He was mostly a non-factor in the first three races. And, today, it seemed like the No. 8 Chevy was out to lunch. They unloaded slow. They qualified in the back of the pack. And, before Stage 1 even ended, Kyle was running 34th with no apparent issues and went a lap down to leader Ryan Blaney. To add insult to injury, Kyle Bush had a tire go down on him three times today. More than any other driver. It appears to be back to the drawing board for team No. 8.
You could say that the Hendrick No. 48 team had a rough weekend in general. But I think it would be more accurate to say that the entire start to 2026 has been catastrophic. Heading into today’s race, even with Bowman starting the first three races of the season, the No. 48 team was 36th in points, last among all full-time drivers. Even Cody Ware was ahead of him. If that’s not bad, I don’t know what is.
To rub salt in the wound, their driver missed today at Phoenix due to showing symptoms of vertigo. So, Anthony Alfredo was into sub and…it went about as well as you’d expect. He went a lap down early and never recovered. He got caught up in the incident involving Joey Logano and DNF’d. Officially, they scored a 33rd finishing position. This is the worst start Bowman could ever imagine, considering that he’s in a contract year.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’ve lost my marbles. “Come on, dude! Penske just swept the weekend! How can they be losers?” Hear me out. Let’s start first with the two other Penske drivers, shall we? Joey Logano caused not one, but two multi-car pileups, one involving his Penske teammate, Austin Cindric. Cars were utterly destroyed. Before that, both Cindric and Logano were running solidly in the top 10.
So, it’s not for a lack of speed that they make our Biggest Losers list. The reason they’re listed here is that a lot of their problems today, if not all of them, were self-inflicted. Logano was driving sloppily and that took out Cindric. And even race winner Ryan Blaney almost lost this race on pit road numerous times. Rookie mistakes by the pit crew constantly had him charging from behind. Pit road penalties. He was like a yo-yo going back and forth throughout the field. What saved him in the end was that, on that last restart, Blaney took two tires and Christopher Bell took 4. If that had not happened, it is extremely possible that Blaney ultimately would have lost the race and it would have been because of their numerous mistakes in the pits.
They got lucky this week. They probably won’t get that lucky again. They need to clean up those nagging, senseless mistakes.
Ole, Danny boy. If Alex Bowman’s seat is the hottest in the series, Daniel Suarez has to be the second hottest in the garage. That No. 7 car has been a revolving door of drivers for the last several years and it looks like Suarez is shaping up to be Spire’s latest victim. It’s the same old story with the team: they show impressive speed in qualifying and even early on in the race. But rarely do they ever put a full race together. That criticism isn’t just for Suarez, it applies to the team across the board.
But Carson Hocevar is the team’s golden child. He’s not going anywhere. And the team seems pretty high on Michael McDowell at the moment. That leaves Suarez looking like the odd man out, a seat-warmer, if you will. He needs to perform. And, he’s done well to start, admittedly. But he qualified 5th for today’s race. He even earned a few stage points in the opening stage. Then, he faltered and left the race with an unceremonious whimper. Ultimately, after he was no longer a factor, he was caught up in a mid-race wreck. He finished 30th. That’s a tough pill to swallow for the Mexican-born driver. If he wants to keep his ride next year, he needs to show stark improvement in the coming weeks. I have a strong feeling that that ride is about to be a highly sought-after commodity once silly season rolls around.
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The first checkered flag of the 2026 rendition of the NASCAR West Coast Swing (as abbreviated as it is) has officially flown. It was an exciting race, full of close, tight-cornered racing, a plethora of tire issues littered throughout, and a couple of heartbreaking, hard hits. Surviving it all was Ryan Blaney, who captured the flag in the Straight Talk 500 at Phoenix Raceway. He survived pit road mishaps and passed a total of 49 cars to win the race today. It marks his 18th career victory, sweeping the weekend for Team Penske. So, for Blaney and Team Penske, the race was the highest of highs. Not everyone escaped unscathed, though. Here are the key takeaways from NASCAR’s spring date at Phoenix.
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Following a relatively clean first stage, Stage number 2 and beyond was littered with cautions. Most of these cautions were a result of tires going down after only about 20 laps or so of use. But the caution on Lao 216 was purely driver error. Joey Logano, who was running 7th at the time, made a move down on the apron approaching the finish line. Chaos ensued. Here’s what happened.
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