Kevin Harvick picks JGR’s veteran as favorite to win the 2025 Nashville NASCAR Cup race

As the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season heads to Nashville Superspeedway, a former NASCAR champion-turned-commentator, Kevin Harvick, has shared his insights and predicted the winner of the 2025 Cracker Barrel 400, which is set to take place this weekend. Harvick picked a Joe Gibbs Racing veteran to win Sunday’s (June 1) Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.

On the latest episode of his ‘Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour’ podcast, the 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion Harvick and his co-hosts, Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith, dropped their winner’s prediction for this week’s Nashville Cup race.

Kevin Harvick picked Denny Hamlin to win at Nashville Superspeedway. Hamlin has a good record at intermediate tracks, and one of his two wins of the 2025 season came at the 1.3-mile Darlington Raceway.

“I'll take Hamlin,” Harvick said while picking the driver to win the 2025 Cracker Barrel 400 [59:00 onwards].

Harvick’s co-host, Vincie, named Chase Elliott to claim his first win of the season. Elliott, who drives the #9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, won at Nashville in 2022.

“I was going to go with Chase Elliott won there in the past 2022. He needs a win,” Vincie said.

Meanwhile, co-host Mamba Smith picked Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar to clinch his first win of the season this weekend.

“I'm going with Carson Hocevar. I kind of talked myself into it because Spire was good there last year. He's been on a heater. They're coming off a blown engine off of, like, probably his best race of his career. Honestly, things are going right,” said Smith.

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How has Kevin Harvick’s top pick performed at the Nashville Superspeedway?

Kevin Harvick’s pick, Denny Hamlin, has good finishes at the Nashville Superspeedway, recording one top-five and two top-10 finishes in four starts at the 1.3-mile tri-oval track.

After 13 races in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, the #11 JGR driver has amassed two wins, five top-five and six top-10 finishes, and led 371 laps with an average finish of 15.2. He’s sixth in the Cup Series points table with 390 points and ranked high in the odds table to claim his third win of the season.

It will be interesting to see how Harvick's and his co-hosts' predictions fare at Nashville Superspeedway. Watch the Cracker Barrel 400 on Prime Video at 7 pm ET. The radio coverage of the weekend event will be available on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.