Kevin Harvick Credits Chase Elliott for Racing Mindset Shift

Kevin Harvick revealed that a conversation with Chase Elliott changed his mental approach to racing after his NASCAR career.

The 2014 Cup Series champion retired from full-time NASCAR competition after the 2023 season.

But he has since competed in a handful of Late Model races.

Throughout his 20-plus career, Harvick won 60 career Cup Series races and a championship in 2014.

Harvick is set to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in January.

During an appearance on "The Dale Jr. Download," Harvick revealed that following his final NASCAR Cup Series race in 2023 at Phoenix, he never wanted to get behind the wheel again.

Harvick no longer wanted to carry the weight it took to be a top-notch driver.

"When I got with Cup Racing, I was like, 'Man, I don't ever want to race again. I'm tired of being critiqued; I'm tired of the pressure; I'm tired of the responsibility,'" Harvick said.

Harvick felt this way until he had a talk with Chase Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion and 23-time race winner, at the Chili Bowl Nationals.

The conversation is something that stuck with Harvick in his views on racing after retirement.

"One thing that really struck me a few years ago was Chase Elliott at the Chili Bowl. … He's like, 'I felt like I needed to step outside of my comfort zone and not worry about my result,'" Harvick recalled.

The effect of the conversation with Elliott took a while for Harvick to come around to.

"It just took me a little while to get myself to the point where I was like, 'All right, well, I might go to the racetrack this week and get lapped,' and I did," Harvick said.

However, Harvick recalls having a moment of clarity after a subpar performance.

"I was kind of pissed and then I got out and I drank a beer and I thought about that conversation and I was like, 'You know what? I had a hell of a time.' Yeah, it'd be really cool to win some. We won some of those races and ran up front in some and got our ass kicked in some, but they are all pretty fun," Harvick said.

Harvick continues to run select Late Model races today but does not put the same pressure on himself as he did during his NASCAR career.

When there is not as much stock put into the effort, Harvick said that is when he and his team are enjoying themselves the most at the racetrack.

"I'm like, 'Hey, I'm here to have fun.' We'll put an effort towards it but probably not going to go," Harvick said.

The mindset shift is a stark contrast to the intensity Harvick was known for during his Cup Series career.

Harvick built a reputation as one of the most driven — and sometimes confrontational — drivers in the garage.

His 60 wins place him ninth on the all-time Cup Series win list.

His 2014 championship came with Stewart-Haas Racing, where he spent the bulk of his career after leaving Richard Childress Racing.

Elliott, meanwhile, is the son of 16-time Most Popular Driver Bill Elliott.

Chase Elliott won the Cup Series championship in 2020 and has been voted the Most Popular Driver every year since 2018.

He drives the No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.

Elliott's 2026 season has been one of his toughest.

He won at Martinsville Speedway in the spring and again at Texas Motor Speedway a few weeks later.

But in the 18 races following his Texas win, Elliott scored only two top-10 finishes.

He has led only 52 laps since the race at Michigan International Speedway in June.

Despite the struggles, Elliott finished runner-up at Martinsville in the fall race, a result some analysts have called his biggest win of 2026.

The reason, according to some observers, is that the strong finish — without winning — may force Hendrick Motorsports to make a crew chief change for the No. 9 team.

Alan Gustafson has been Elliott's only crew chief in 11 Cup Series seasons.

Critics argue that the combination has grown stale and that Elliott's performance has declined relative to his championship season.

Elliott led 1,247 laps during his 2020 championship campaign.

Since the start of the 2023 season, he has led 1,398 laps — barely more than that single season.

He has not won a pole on speed since 2022.

Gustafson has worked with four Hall of Fame-caliber drivers over his career, including Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Kyle Larson.

The question now is whether Hendrick Motorsports will make a change in the offseason.

Harvick's story offers a different kind of lesson about Elliott's influence.

It is not about results on the track.

It is about how Elliott's words helped Harvick rediscover joy in racing after he thought he was done.

The conversation happened at the Chili Bowl Nationals, the annual midget car race in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Harvick did not specify which year the conversation took place.

But he said the message from Elliott was clear: step outside your comfort zone and stop obsessing over the outcome.

Harvick admitted it took him a while to accept that philosophy.

He had spent his entire career being judged by wins, championships, and performance metrics.

Letting go of that mindset did not come naturally.

But after a race where he got lapped — something that would have been unthinkable during his Cup Series prime — Harvick said he got out of the car, had a beer, and realized he had genuinely enjoyed himself.

That moment, he said, was the turning point.