With Kyle Larson qualifying for the Indianapolis 500, Hendrick Motorsports tapped Kevin Harvick to practice the No. 5 Chevrolet in North Wilkesboro. Harvick details the backstory to NASCAR.com's Alex Weaver.
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00:00 >> Here at north Wilkes-Barre Speedway in the NASCAR cup series garage.
00:03 He didn't get lost on his way to the booth.
00:04 Kevin Harvick is in a fire suit.
00:06 You're filling in for Kyle Larson this weekend.
00:08 Practice and qualifying.
00:09 You've already been inside the race car.
00:11 What did you feel in your practice session?
00:13 >> It was not a bad practice session.
00:17 I think Cliff and all the guys on the Hendrick cars.com Chevrolet had a plan as to what we
00:24 wanted to accomplish.
00:25 I think we did that and were able to get good information and have all that information
00:31 for them to go through tonight and put themselves in hopefully a good spot for Kyle when he
00:34 gets here on Sunday.
00:35 >> How did this even happen?
00:37 Did Mr. A's pick up the phone and it was an automatic yes from you?
00:41 Walk me through the steps.
00:43 >> There's very few people that this would have happened for.
00:47 Rick is one of those people.
00:49 Cliff and Kyle talked to Rick about it.
00:53 Rick called me one morning.
00:54 He said, hey, I need a favor.
00:55 I said, okay.
00:56 Before he asked me what the question was, I didn't even know what he was going to ask.
01:02 He would do that for you.
01:03 He's always been very good to me in everything that I've ever -- any interaction that I've
01:07 ever had with him.
01:09 To be able to help him out and just kind of go through the motions and really understand
01:16 where things progress.
01:17 I love being around the people.
01:19 To hear how different people go about it in different ways.
01:22 This is obviously a pretty unique situation with Kyle and running the Indy 500 and trying
01:28 to run the all-star race and the coke 600.
01:30 Hopefully it helped him that much.
01:34 It was fun either way.
01:36 >> You know this racetrack.
01:37 You raced it in north Wilkes-Barre before.
01:38 What's harder, hopping back into the race car for practice and qualifying or dealing
01:43 with Clint bowyer every single weekend?
01:45 >> This is way harder.
01:49 We talk about it all the time how good our guys are in the cars and what they do and
01:54 how hard it is.
01:57 Just being one step behind every lap that you're out there from not being in there every
02:02 week and not being able to get that last tenth and a half out of the car.
02:05 That really comes from the guys that do it every week and are able to just push those
02:10 limits.
02:11 So driver was a little bit off in that department.
02:15 But I think it really makes everybody understand how hard it actually is if you don't do it
02:22 every week.
02:23 >> Glad to have you back.
02:24 Have fun today.