George Costanza (played by Jason Alexander) said in a 1996 episode of Seinfeld that the name “Seven” would be a great name for a child.
Susan Ross, played by Heidi Swedberg, hates the name which caused George to scream, “Alright, let’s just stay calm here! Don’t get all crazy on me!”
Sadly for George, Susan’s cousin loved the name and decided to name her child “Seven,” despite George’s attempts to change her mind at the hospital on the day of birth.
For Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang team for Stewart Haas Racing, seven has a much sweeter ring to it. For they have seven wins in the 2020 season and that team has been together for seven years – and all those years have been with the support and partnership of Mobil 1.
And what a seven years it has been.
Since joining forces at SHR in 2014, Harvick and crew chief Rodney Childers have combined to produce 33 points-paying victories, a victory in the non-points 2018 NASCAR All-Star Race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, 25 Busch poles, 123 top-five finishes and 174 top-10s while leading 10,719 laps. They won the 2014 championship, finished runner-up in the 2015 title chase to champion Kyle Busch, finished eighth in 2016 and third in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Harvick has already clinched this year’s regular-season title, which brings with it 15 playoff points.
And he’s won three of the last five races, which means he and his team are hot at just the right time.
Before the playoff opener Sept. 6 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, though, they must get through Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400, the regular-season finale at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
Harvick has started 77 races in his career at Daytona and its sister track Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, with three total victories for a winning percentage of 3.8 percent.
While his superspeedway win percentage isn’t his best, Harvick did win the biggest race of them all in 2007 when he led just four laps to take the Daytona 500 victory.
The truth is, Daytona and Talladega are different animals when it comes to stock car racing because they are races that literally anyone can win. Drivers must draft together, side-by-side, at speeds approaching 200 mph, and a lot of the race is spent trying to get into the best position on the final lap to try and win the race.
Harvick will again have the help of Mobil 1 on board as a sponsor and partner, and that relationship paid off nicely for Harvick three weekends ago at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn and last week at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. For racing twice with just one Ford engine in more than 90-degree air temperatures Saturday and Sunday at Michigan, he totaled 634 miles in the twin events and came home with two trophies thanks to the advantage Mobil 1 technology gave him and the No. 4 team.
He finished fourth Saturday at Dover and won Sunday and his engine went 622 miles with air temperatures in the 80s. Afterward, Harvick said simply, “Thank you to Mobil 1. They put a lot into the oils and lubricants in these cars and grinding to find more horsepower and less drag. It is an honor to drive for these guys.”
Mobil 1 isn’t just the world’s leading synthetic motor oil brand, it also provides the entire SHR team with leading lubricant technology, ensuring that all SHR Mustangs have a competitive edge over the competition on the track. In its 18th consecutive season as the “Official Motor Oil of NASCAR,” Mobil 1 is used by more than 50 percent of teams throughout NASCAR’s top three series.
The regular-season championship is already decided, but Harvick can still gain more playoff points and at the end of the day, the No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford team loves to win. And Harvick will be going for career win number 57.
KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
You’re in the single digits now in the all-time win list, tied for ninth. What does that mean? You’re getting into some pretty serious territory with some pretty serious guys up there.
“Yeah, you know, it’s an honor just to be up there on that list and, as I’ve said before, I feel like it’s definitely a huge responsibility to be up there and be around those guys. Hopefully we can keep this thing rolling and make up some ground on the next gap. But it’s been a lot of fun at Stewart-Haas Racing, and you’re only as good as the racecars that you have, and it’s been an honor to drive the racecars and be able to take those racecars and have success with them and capitalize on winning like we did (Sunday).”
What does it mean to you to be the regular-season champion? You’ve won a lot of races, so you haven’t backed into it, and you’ve won that now, and what does that mean in your kind of back-and-forth with Denny Hamlin?
“Well, it’s something that we’ve never done before, so any time you can do something for the first time, it’s definitely fun to accomplish, and I think in this instance it definitely pays dividends in the playoff points. Look, that’s really what you want to accomplish in the regular season – to gain as many playoff points as you can. We’ve done that by winning races. We’ve done that in a number of different ways throughout the year just trying to be consistent and make up for days when things aren’t going good and make finishes out of them. It’s been a great 25 weeks, and hopefully we can have a good week in Daytona and see where it all falls after that.”
Why do your prefer Mobil 1 synthetic?
“I’m a synthetic guy because, in 1993 when we were sitting in the engine shop, we dumped Mobil 1 synthetic in and that’s all we did and gained seven horsepower. From that day on, we would actually save our money and then go to the local auto parts store because, at that time, it was like $5.50 a quart and the conventional and other oils were like $3.50. At the big races, we would put the Mobil 1 in the car and the regular races would put the regular oil in there. You know I’m going to say synthetic.”
