"It'll take us to places": Kevin Harvick in favour of road courses in NASCAR despite his 'too many' admission

Kevin Harvick recently commented on the potential reaction to Shane Van Gisbergen's road course domination. The NASCAR veteran took the mic on his podcast, Happy Hour, and made a big prediction about the effects of SVG's wins on one particular type of track.

Gisbergen, who took the NASCAR world by storm with his win in Chicago in 2023, has won 4 races this season. Importantly, all four of his wins have come on road courses.

Because of this, Kevin Harvick thought that NASCAR might be forced to look into the subject of road courses on the schedule. He said:

"I think now because he wins so much on the road course, now the debate for the fan council that NASCAR sends out to do all these polls is going to be, do we have too many road course races?" [11:50]

Harvick claimed that if NASCAR has to grow its brand outside of the US, it needs road course racing.

"If you're going to be international, you got to have a road course. The international fans don't understand oval racing. It'll take us to places hopefully like Montreal. It's taken us to Mexico City. It's put us in COTA. It's put us at all these great venues that are worldclass venues and people understand road racing and maybe it opens the door for more people that are good road racers to come over here and say, 'Well, maybe I should try this because SVG is having success and I think I'm better than him,'" Harvick described. [12:30]

Adding to Harvick's point, his co-host Mamba Smith said that the schedule in NASCAR is 'so diverse', because of which the drivers are 'the best in the world.' Having said that, he admitted that most people don't share the same opinion about the drivers.

Kevin Harvick doesn't understand why SVG isn't being celebrated for his NASCAR achievements.

Speaking on SVG's recent road course domination, Kevin Harvick wondered why, instead of his amazing feats being celebrated, they're hated. Harvick raised the question of why greatness isn't celebrated in NASCAR, which, as per him, has been a constant conversation through the years.

The former driver believed that when a driver wins a lot of races, he's often knocked down instead of being celebrated.

Harvick mentioned that those who are criticising Gisbergen for his rapid rise in NASCAR are comparing him to Dan Gurnie, who was active in the 60s.

"That's what we're comparing it to. It's not like this is different. It's not something new. It's just something that most fans don't recognize because they don't know anything about the 1960s in in the NASCAR history," Harvick said. [13:30]

With that said, it'll be interesting to see how the discourse around Shane Van Gisbergen develops further with one more road course race left in 2025.