Finding his happy place: it's no coincidence: as Kevin Harvick toned down his act, he climbed up in the points standings - NASCAR

What is it your mother used to say? "What doesn't kin you only makes you stronger." True, maybe. Trite, certainly. Annoying, absolutely. But, as with so many of those aphorisms your mom tossed around, darned if there wasn't some truth in that one. Of course, it's all well and good to realize that mom was fight, but the cold, hard reality is that, well, learning life's lessons sometimes just ... plain ... sucks.

Perhaps you've lived a charmed life and are unfamiliar with this truth. If so, read on, because you might well learn a thing or two from what happened to Kevin Harvick.

In 2001, after inheriting Dale Earnhardt's seat in the hallowed No. 3 (rechristened No. 29) under horrible circumstances, the then-25-year-old blew into Winston Cup and rocked the racing scene. Harvick won in his third race--at the time, the fastest first win in Cup history--won another race, finished an impressive ninth in points and won the Rookie of the Year award. Oh, right--he also ran the Busch Series full time, won five of those races and the series title.

Everything was in place for 2002 to be nothing short of awesome.

"People thought this group would win the championship by 500 points," says Fox analyst and former Richard Childress Racing crew chief Larry McReynolds.

Well, not exactly.

"Basically, the year sucked," Harvick says.

Not all of it, he's quick to add, but it still certainly was pretty bad. Yes, there was a win at Chicago and a pole at Daytona in July, but what was expected to be a smooth continuation of Year 1's promise quickly degenerated into a mess. The season began with a crash and a 36th-place finish at the Daytona 500, continued with finishes of 25th or worse in 10 of his next 13 races and included a one-race Cup suspension at Martinsville in April for rough racing in a Craftsman Truck Series event.

"In 2002, things caught up with him," McReynolds says.

The honeymoon definitely was over, and Harvick's chaotic season ended with a 21st-place finish in points.

"Kevin got a little frustrated," says car owner Richard Childress. "I was frustrated, too--I'm just glad I didn't get in trouble."

Cue mom's chirpy voice: "From the ashes of defeat ..."

"I learned a lot of valuable lessons," says the slightly chastened Harvick, now 27. "Lots. Basically, I learned that I can't just be some belligerent ass. That's not the proper way to do things. (NASCAR) didn't ask me to change; all they asked me to do was stop treating people the way I'd been treating them."

In his candor, Harvick tacitly is acknowledging that what long has been held true in the garage you will not succeed in Winston Cup if you have no friends--was something he had to learn. The hard way.

"I like Kevin Harvick a lot, and I like racing against Kevin Harvick," says Jimmy Spencer, a driver who knows a thing or two about winning friends and influencing people. "But I think that when NASCAR parked him, he realized this series can go on without him. Drivers have to realize this sport will succeed with or without them.... He's not lost his competitiveness or his fierceness, but he's learned to respect not just the officials and NASCAR, but he's also learned to respect his fellow competitors."

Harvick offers a small laugh when he hears Spencer's comments but ultimately agrees with them.

"I don't think you can succeed in Winston Cup racing without gaining the respect of your competitors," he says. "If you piss too many of them off ... I've kind of been there, and that's where Kurt Busch is right now. This sport is too close-knit a bunch to have 90 percent mad."

While it's anyone's guess what direct impact Harvick's newfound maturity has had on his racing, there's no doubt this season has started more auspiciously than last. Harvick hasn't won yet, but he has four top 10 finishes and is eighth in points.

His mom probably would say her boy's success is the result of a newfound ability to "keep his nose to the grindstone" or something to that effect, but Harvick's turnaround also likely is the by-product of a slightly more tangible factor: the shakeup administered by Childress midway through last season, when the owner essentially swapped the crews of Harvick and teammate Robby Gordon. The switch paid immediate dividends, resulting in Harvick's lone win and four top fives and six top 10s in the season's final 23 races. Clearly, that momentum has carried over.

But still not satisfied, Childress shuffled the No. 29 crew chief deck again after the Darlington race in March. He reunited Harvick with Todd Berrier, with whom Harvick won his Busch title in 2001. Even Gil Martin, whom Berrier replaced, says he recognizes the connection between Berrier and Harvick, which was the main reason for the latest switch.

"Todd and I have that brotherly click, a click that just works," Harvick says. "It worked in the past, and it's worked this year."

Berrier agrees he and Harvick have cultivated mutual respect, though he's not exactly sure why.

"We've always got along--since Day 1," he says. "But I'm typically not a people person, so I don't really know how to explain it."

That might be precisely why the two click: In his first two seasons, the driver referred to wryly as "Happy" for what should be obvious reasons hardly went out of his way to endear himself to anyone; it was another lesson learned, one Harvick believes has rebounded in his favor.

"I've tried to take the lessons I've learned and translate them to my personal life, to my wife and friends," he says. "(The misbehavior), it was all stuff I'd done before, so I really began to try to work on that. I think any changes I've had to make have made me a better person."

Invariably, a professional athlete comes equipped with a drive or a burning desire or an incredible will to succeed. Remove that drive or burning desire or incredible will by trying to alter his personality, and what are you left with? Many would say "a loser," or at least a lesser driver. Harvick, not to mention Tony Stewart, another infamous grouch, likely look at it a different way--gaining restraint doesn't have to mean losing intensity.

"He is a bigger man for what he's been through, and I respect him highly," Childress says. "I haven't seen any fire going out. He drives the car as hard, as aggressive, as he ever did. When it comes down to it, he's going to get on the wheel just like he always has."

Talk to people who are around Harvick consistently and what emerges is a picture of a young man who has begun to come to terms with all that has happened to him in three short years.

"He's taking more things with a grain of salt," Berrier says. "Typically, he'd get wound up over the least little bit. Now typically he can look at things or situations and understand why. Patience does come with age."

"I don't know if you'd call it growing up as much as understanding Winston Cup racing, getting the feel of it, so to speak," Childress says. "He had a lot of stuff dropped on him in 2001, and I don't know of anyone else who could have handled those pressures the way he did."

If Harvick isn't the type to turn to pithy phrases to get him through tough times, he can take satisfaction in the knowledge that his efforts to change have been noticed--and appreciated--by fellow racers.

"I know last year was hard for Kevin by being suspended from Martinsville," Jimmie Johnson says. "But Kevin wants to be in the sport, and this year he's making a huge effort to try and maintain his emotions a lot better--and he's done a great job with it."

But for all the lessons learned, the roads traveled, the dues paid, and so on and so forth, the heart of the old Kevin still beats in the chest of the kinder, gentler Kevin.

"I think NASCAR enjoys the aggressive person," he says, "and if I really had to change who I was ... I'm not going to. I will quit before then. I can still say things, and if I'm pissed at somebody, I'm still probably going to jump over a car and tell them."

Now, what was that room used to say about teaching an old dog new tricks?

The factory factor

Kevin Harvick's precipitous drop was bad enough, but combine his 21st-place Winston Cup points finish with Jeff Green's 17th and Robby Gordon's 20th, and Richard Childress Racing had itself an old-fashioned disaster in 2002.

RCR, you might recall, has grown somewhat accustomed to success. Six series titles---all by Dale Earnhardt--will do that to a team. So what happened?

"I think that when Earnhardt was killed, it definitely put a hurt on that organization," says former RCR crew chief and current Fox analyst Larry McReynolds. "It took them a while to show up, to recover from the shock. In 2001, they seemed to operate off adrenaline. And last year, I just think (the organization) just bit off more than it could chew. They moved into a brandnew facility, Richard started a third Cup team--I've always said, two is like two, three is like 10. The organization was small just overwhelmed. Throw In a new body style, and they just started the year from behind."

Todd Berrier, Harvick's crew chief, says the decision to bring RCR's two Busch and three Cup teams together in one facility wasn't the right thing to do.

"Teams have got to have some free reign," he says. "(Last year) it was run more like a factory than it should be, but we're trying to work out of that."

And that is turning out to be a work in progress.

"We're still trying to get the organization back to where it needs to be," Childress says. "But we haven't panicked, we've all made commitments to each other, we haven't fired anybody. SUre, we've shuffled people, but it's all been done with one goal in mind--to get us back up front. We're going to got there. I guarantee you, we're going to get there."--S.T.

Stephen Thomas is a free-lance writer based in Millburn, N.J.

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