Kevin Harvick has a lot of stories to tell from his NASCAR career, and now he's telling them on his own terms.
On the latest episode of Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour , the 2014 Cup Series champ talked about two very different relationships that defined his time in the sport. His close friendship with Tony Stewart and his intense rivalry with Kyle Busch.
Harvick spent the last 10 years of his career at Stewart-Haas Racing and described his bond with Stewart as something much deeper than a professional relationship. "I love Tony Stewart like a brother," Harvick said. "We became great friends through the years and competed hard against each other."
That's in stark contrast to his dynamic with Busch, one of his biggest rivals on track. While he acknowledged being social friends with Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick made it clear their relationship was forged through non-stop competition in all three national series.
"Kyle and I are social friends here and there, not quite like Tony," Harvick said. "But I appreciated the competition that was always presented with Kyle Busch. Because it was in Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup, and it didn't matter what you were racing."
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Credit: Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images
That rivalry got ugly at times with on-track incidents and post-race confrontations. Take, for example, the 2011 Southern 500 at Darlington. Busch bumped Harvick late in the race and Harvick chased him down pit road. Kvein Harvick even tried to throw a punch but Kyle Busch , still sitting in his car, rammed Harvick's unattended car into the pit wall to get away.
But for all the fire and smoke, Harvick says it made them both better racers.
"He wanted to rip my head off, and I wanted to rip his head off," Kevin Harvick recalled. "And I wanted to beat him bad, and he wanted to beat me bad. And it went through those years of just that head-to-head competition that just made us better racers."
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