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Kevin Harvick warns Tyler Reddick 'momentum' can be dangerous, points to Christopher Bell

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones03/03/26brianjones_93

Kevin Harvick has a message for Tyler Reddick and his No. 45 team after winning the first three races of the NASCAR Cup Series season. On this week’s Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick warns that momentum in NASCAR can be dangerous if you don’t maintain it.

“Momentum is a real thing in our sport,” Kevin Harvick said. “When you have that, things just happen easier. But you better ride that wave while you have it. We saw Christopher Bell win three in a row last year. This is not abnormal. It’s abnormal that you win the first three, but to win three in a row is not something that we haven’t seen happen before. We’ve seen that happen a lot.”

Harvick then said that having momentum can be a “great thing” for Reddick and his team. But the NASCAR legend also pointed out that it can be a “bad thing” because the other drivers are working hard to win, while “you’re riding the wave of momentum and the details and preparation that you have in your cars already that everybody else might not.”

Will Tyler Reddick fall into the same trap as Christopher Bell?

Havick mentioned Bell winning three in a row early in the season and got “stagnant and didn’t perform like they needed to in the summer.” He believes that they struggled because they didn’t do a good job “keeping up with the progression of trying to get better.”

Bell won another race during the playoffs last year and finished fifth in the finals standings. The championship format has changed for this season, as there will be a 10-race Chase after the regular season ends, so Reddick is in a good position already to finish on top of the standings during the regular season and get a head start in the Chase.

But as Harvick mentioned, momentum is only good if you continue to ride it as long as you can. Reddick can afford to have a couple of bad races because of his commanding lead, but earning a Cup Series championship in the new format requires a driver to be the most consistent in the series. Reddick and 23XI Racing will do everything they can to stay on top when November rolls around.