Kevin Harvick reacts to Kyle Larson comments on NASCAR championship experience ahead of Phoenix

Kevin Harvick doesn’t agree with one thing Kyle Larson said about competing in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship. On Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick was asked if he agreed with Larson saying that his previous championship experience wouldn’t be an advantage for him when he competes in the race on Sunday.

“I don’t think so,” Kevin Harick said. “There’s a lot to navigate as far as the week and the weekend and things that are going to be annoying. You’re going to have more people around you. …You got to have a plan if you’re going to do it well. If you just go in there and wing it, I don’t think you’re going to get the most out of it. I think you got to have a structured plan.

“When you look a the Hendrick organization, I think that they’re going to keep [William] Byron in line and help him manage his time because that’s what they do as a company anyway. I think the pressure of the weekend is high. But I think the biggest thing in navigating the weekend is all the things that are not in your normal routine.”

Kyle Larson says his NASCAR title experinece “matters” for this year’s Championship 4 race

Harvick went on to say that the “racing part is actually easier to navigate” because the drivers have worked all season to get there. Kyle Larson knows all about this as he won the NASCAR Cup Series title in 2021. He clinched a spot in this year’s Championship 4 despite being on a 23-race winless streak.

Larson made it to the championship race because he has finished no worse than seventh in five of the last six races. On Sunday, Larson finished fifth, which was the highest of the four drivers who are competing in the championship race. The other three who made the Championship 4 are Byron, Denny Hamlin, and Chase Briscoe.

One reason Larson believes his championship experience won’t be an advantage is that fact that Hamlin and Byron have competed in the race before. “I really don’t think [my title matters],” Larson said, per Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports. “It’s been so long, and we all have [experience]. Chase doesn’t have any Championship 4 experience, but I don’t even think that matters either.

“We’ll see. I would like to win a championship and not have a new champion next week, but it’s going to be tough, for sure. It always is.”