The 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season has been an up and down ride for Richard Childress Racing’s Kevin Harvick. The 2007 Daytona 500 champion started the year off right with a runner-up finish in Daytona, but was caught up in an incident the following week in Fontana.

The driver of the No. 29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet was able to rebound in the next two events at Las Vegas and Atlanta, however struggled in Bristol just one year after helping give RCR a 1-2-3 finish.  An eleventh-place finish in Martinsville was a step in the right direction, yet the team fought an ill-handling in Texas and finished a disappointing 27th.

Currently fourteenth in the series standings, Harvick is only thirty-nine points behind teammate Jeff Burton in twelfth and is headed to a track he grew up racing at and has enjoyed a bit of success on.

“Phoenix is a place for me that’s a lot of fun just because it’s a place where I grew up racing and the track hasn’t changed a whole lot,” Harvick explained.  “Obviously the surroundings have changed a little bit on the outside, but it’s a place that I enjoy going to. I enjoy the flat tracks and it creates a unique challenge because the asphalt’s worn out and it’s got a lot of cracks and crevices. It’s one of those places where you have to get your car to handle a little bit differently on each end and you have to drive a little different on each end. You have to get your car to handle and have good forward bite up off the corner.”

In twelve starts in the Cup Series at the Phoenix International Raceway, Harvick has two wins, three top-5s and six top-10s. Both of those wins came in 2007 when Harvick swept the events that year. The California-native has also had a great deal of success at PIR in the Nationwide and Truck Series, and grew up cutting his teeth at the 1-mile track.

“A lot of things have happened at Phoenix,” Harvick pointed out. “We have been fortunate to win in all three divisions. I ran one of my first truck races there in a truck that we built ourselves and was fortunate to win. I grew up racing at Phoenix. That was kind of like our Daytona every year for the Southwest Tour and Winston West. It is a good place to race and always a lot of fun to go back and see friends and families you don’t see a lot. There are just a lot of memories on the track and off the track. I don’t know if I can narrow it down to just one.”

Thus far in 2009, we have seen both Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon break winless streaks and perhaps this weekend Harvick will have a chance at snapping his. Harvick has not been able to get back to victory lane since his dramatic win in the 2007 Daytona 500 – seventy-eight races ago.

Always a threat on the flat track in the desert, Harvick should be a contender in this weekend’s Subway Fresh Fit 500.

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