Harvick looking at ‘week-to-week’ issues at RCR and not talking about long-term future

Harvick noncommittal on future with RCR

INDIANAPOLIS — Kevin Harvick did not discuss his future with Richard Childress Racing, instead he answered questions about his status by shifting focus to his preparation at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“We’re focused on this weekend,” was a version of his standard response when pressed Saturday about his long-term options at RCR.

A disappointing season has thrown Harvick’s name into the rumor mill, with some speculation he is trying to work his way out of a contract that runs through 2010. The speculation reached a fevered pitch last week, and Childress issued a sharply worded statement that Harvick will be driving the No. 29 Chevrolet next season.

“Right now, we’re here to race and do what we need to do from a driver’s standpoint and everybody is working well together,” he said when asked if he wanted to be with Childress beyond next year.

“We all want to make things the best that we can, and right now we’re working on Indy.”

But Harvick was otherwise candid in discussing his frustration with what he’s classified as the worst season of his career at any level. He’s winless since the 2007 season-opening Daytona 500 and is currently 25th in the points standings.

Harvick, who has led just nine laps all season, will start 19th in Sunday’s race. He is the 2003 Indianapolis winner.

He has spent his entire NASCAR career with Childress, who promoted him to the Cup Series a year early following Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001. He has won 11 races for RCR and made the Chase for the championship the last three seasons, but has little chance of making his way back into the 12-driver field this year.

“As a team, we’ve been off in everything,” Harvick said. “Everybody is kind of stale right now. Everything is not fast enough. Everything isn’t run good enough to be where everybody wants to be. I don’t really have anything to look at or look forward to.

“I don’t have anything cooking or anything different. Right now I’m the driver of the No. 29 Shell Pennzoil RCR Chevrolet. That’s my job. That’s what I intend to focus on. Everything else will take care of itself.”

Although Harvick isn’t talking about his status with RCR, his decision is partly related to a maturity level he has reached since starting his own race team. His 2006 contract negotiations were rather public, as well as much of Harvick’s frustrations over both on- and off-track issues.

This time, he said he wants to keep issues out of the press.

“A lot of the things that happen away from the race track are things that need to be kept within the walls of our companies or our homes,” Harvick said. “The biggest thing that happened when everybody got in an uproar last time was it all went public. And that’s not going to happen.

“No matter what happens, in the end, Richard and I will always be friends. We will always have gone through a lot of good times together and hopefully we will go through a lot of great times together as we go forward. We’re not going to drag this thing — all of us drivers and the crew chiefs, we’re not going to drag this thing through the mud. We’re going to put our heads down and try to make it the best that we can.”

Not all the performance is down for Harvick, who celebrated as car owner for Ron Hornaday’s record-setting fourth consecutive Truck Series victory on Friday night. It’s been an overall outstanding year for Kevin Harvick Inc., which has won seven races in the Nationwide and Truck Series. Hornaday is the current Trucks points leader.

“Everything away from the Cup side of it is probably the best year that we’ve had,” Harvick said. “But in the end, the Cup car is what everything is built around. And when you come home on Monday, that’s the last thing (race) you’ve done and we could shut the doors on everything else, and (Cup) is still all that matters. This is what makes it all go around.”