With a clear vision of his future in the racing industry, Kevin Harvick isn’t overcome with nostalgia as he visits each of the NASCAR Cup Series tracks for the last time as a driver.

Harvick, 47, who represents drivers and athletes from other sports on the management side, will move into the FOX Sports television booth as an analyst next season. Hence, his attitude toward his final season as a competitor isn’t that of a tearful departure.

“I’m excited for it to be over,” Harvick said before Saturday’s Cup practice at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “I think, as I go to each race track, it’s fun to be able to celebrate and do the things that you need to do, and I’m enjoying the time that I have with the guys and seeing and hearing what they’re going to do next and how things are going to shake out.

“For me, what’s it’s about is enjoying each week for different reasons, and we’re going to be heavily involved in the sport and the industry for a long time to come with several different aspects of it, so you try to take the driving thing and do what you’ve done for the last however many years – 22 years at the Cup level – and enjoy that part of it, but I think in my mind there’s just a tremendous amount of stuff that’s already happening for what we do going forward.

“But I’m not crying myself to sleep.”

Harvick came back this season for one reason and one reason only – to win races for his fans. The 47-year-old California native was at peace to walk away a year ago but he didn’t want to let his fans down to do so without a swan song. 

Unfortunately, he’s winless after 31 races this season. However, he was just .012-seconds away from winning a thrilling YellaWood 500 at the Talladega Superspeedway last Sunday. In a race that featured 70 lead changes, Harvick was there in the end with a shot at a last lap, walk off win in his No. 4 Ford. Blaney nipped him at the line.

 It would have been a monumental one at that. It’s no secret, Harvick is no fan of superspeedway racing. However, how ironic would it have been that he won his final start on one?

“You know, that would have been great. Talladega has been so up-and-down through the years. We’ve had some great moments, some bad moments. Last superspeedway race and went out with everything rolling, so that’s a good thing.”

Harvick admits that the fans would have love to celebrate his No. 4 Ford winning in Talladega too.

“Yeah, they might have torn it down,” Harvick said of the fan reaction if he would have won Sunday.

Then, a few hours later, came a DQ. NASCAR said that the windshield was the area of emphasis. Rodney Childers took to social media to explain that while he’s done stuff in the past to merit the penalties, this wasn’t one of them. The turbulent air caused the support to come out which is why his window was unsecured.

Still, you can’t appeal that and Harvick’s second place finish turns into a last placed one. Imagine if he would have won. Imagine the outrage that it would have been taken away.

Now, he’s down to 5 races left to end a 43-race long drought. The Charlotte ROVAL is up first, but this isn’t one of his stronger tracks.

To book end it, Phoenix is last and it’s a place to where he’s at his best at. Unfortunately though, he won’t be in the Championship 4 and all 9 final races under this format have been won by a championship driver.

That leaves then Charlotte, Vegas, Homestead and Martinsville.

For Vegas, Harvick has had three Top-4 finishes in a five-race span before being eighth, 10th, 20th, ninth, 12th, ninth in his last five. At Kansas though, a like track, Harvick was only 15th and 36th respectively a season ago too and 11th in both races this season. He is a great fantasy play (9th, 11th, 2nd, 11th, 10th, 19th, 11th, sixth) on intermediate tracks this season, but, not an outright winner.

In Homestead, he was only 26th in 2020 but rebounded to score a fifth-place run in 2021 and eighth last year. Harvick also has 14 Top-10 finishes in his last 15 Homestead starts including 18 of his last 20 when going back two decades ago. He was runner-up in the spring Darlington race and if not for bad luck with a caution while running second on pit road, he had a Top-2 going again in the Southern 500.

For Martinsville, Harvick has had just two Top-5s in his last 22 Martinsville starts including 15th and 17th in 2020, ninth and 12th last year and 14th and 16th last year and 20th this spring.

It may be down to Homestead.