‘He’s whipped my butt’: Inside Kevin and Keelan Harvick’s Racing Battles

LAS VEGAS — It’s about 15 minutes before practice and Kevin Harvick doesn’t seem all that worried about getting ready to get in his car.

He’s sitting in a chair talking about a racing dynamic he never thought he would experience: Racing against his son in full-bodied stock cars.

His 13-year-old son, Keelan, has shown great promise as a race-car driver, potentially following his Cup champion father (and current FOX Sports analyst) as one of the great NASCAR talents. Time will tell, but Keelan’s success on short tracks — it will be at least a couple of years before he can race major events on an oval bigger than a mile — indicate he has the tools.

“Whether I finish first or last, I’m having fun,” Kevin said. “I enjoyed what I did for a living, but it was still your job and you were required to have good results. You’re required to go do appearances.

“[Now] I pick where I want to race. I pick the events that I want to do. And to be able to go and enjoy racing and remember why you love the sport, that’s been pretty gratifying for me, to be able to let that pressure just go away and not worry about whether you won or lost and what we need to do next week.”

Kevin Harvick and son Keelan hang at the track during Harvick’s final Cup season in 2023.

Father and son have a schedule of racing each other eight times this year, and entering the CARS Tour West race this past Friday night at The Bullring in Las Vegas, Keelan had bested his father all five times.

“I tell him this all the time, I’m not the guy that you need to be racing,” Kevin said. “I’m having fun. I’m not as fast as a lot of the young kids. For me, I’m having a great time doing it.

“It’s definitely not become easier because as he gets more experienced and gets used to things, there isn’t a lot of learning curve left in getting up to speed. It definitely hasn’t become easier at home or in practice or after the race, because all I do is hear about how he’s whipped my butt.”

Kevin Harvick is co-owner of the CARS Tour series and on this night, he dealt with a lengthy rain delay in trying to determine if the show could go on as scheduled. It did, and Keelan passed his dad for second place late in the 100-lap race that had started around 10:30 p.m. on the 0.375-mile asphalt track.

Keelan, trying to make a pass on a lapped car as he had hoped to catch the leader, ended up hard in the wall, crushing the rear of the car. He was not injured. Kevin finished third.

“I knew at that point [he was behind me], I thought I’d let the kids try to run into each other,” Kevin said. “That was my best chance to win. So I just kind of let him go right there. I knew that he was faster than me, and … I thought if they could get to racing each other [for the lead], then I’d be in a good spot.

“But he was the caution.”

This will be a learning experience for Keelan, who obviously has had a year of learning experiences racing his dad.

Keelan has learned how to deliver a non-controversial and respectful response to that wreck, which took out both Keelan and his competitor.

“Disappointing for our Rackley team,” Keelan said about the team that fields late models for him and his dad. “We had a really fast car. It just didn’t work out.

“I went to go for a pass, and I guess he didn’t know I was there. But I just hate it for all my guys. They worked really hard, and I’m just sorry to them that I destroyed my car.”

When Keelan is ready, Kevin said they would go through the incident. Kevin also had a little trouble lapping that car earlier in the race.

“We’ll go back and watch it and go through the scenario,” Kevin said. “Certain cars, you’ve just got to take your time with and be aware. But it’s hard to do when you’re at the end of the race.

“He’s trying to race down the leader. We give him a lot of space to just kind of learn and talk when he wants to talk about things.”

It can be intimidating to learn from his dad, but Keelan realizes the resource he has is different from many of the other drivers.

“He’s just teaching me to be calm and just drive through the field without having to hit anybody, and just be the best of my ability on and off the track,” Keelan said. 

Keelan Harvick, 13, reacts after crashing his race car during the closing laps of the Pro Late Models race in Las Vegas.

One thing Keelan has learned — his dad can take the information and process it. Earlier this year, Keelan went out earlier in the qualifying order and gave his dad some tips. 

“He came over to my car before I qualified because he went out early, and he said, ‘Hey, you need to do this, this and this,’” Kevin said. “And then I beat him for the pole. He was livid afterward.

“He said, ‘I am never helping you again.’” 

Keelan said that is accurate.

“I don’t know if I should give him anymore advice,” Keelan said. “He took my advice a little too well.”

Keelan is having fun and has some of the quips ready when asked about racing his dad:

“Now that I don’t get screamed out every week, it’s a lot more fun,” he said about his growth as a driver.

Can he scream back?

“No, he’ll get mad,” Keelan said. “Only him.”

Kevin doesn’t get mad when his son passes him because racing a pro late model, which is about 700-800 pounds lighter than a NASCAR car, requires different footwork in managing the brake and the throttle — footwork Kevin isn’t going to learn as he turns 50 in December.

So he knows he likely will never have the speed as a driver such as his son at the level that they’re racing. But he obviously has years of racing experience.

For a driver who always seemed so focused on winning, it appears strange he can go out and focus on having fun. But he’s not only racing against his son. He’s growing a grassroots short-track series in hopes of strengthening the path of how young drivers can get to NASCAR.

Kevin knows that few dads get to experience what he has experienced this last year and that the experience is likely only going to last a few more years.

“These next three or four years of being able to spend that time together to be a part of the progression of his career — that’s not something that most people get to do, and not something that I planned on doing,” Kevin said.

“I had no intention of really racing anymore. But with his racing, and the CARS Tour growth and everything that goes with grassroots racing in general, the two plans kind of fell into place together to grow the CARS tour, to be a part of his career and try to help get the grassroots piece of it more structured and organized than it’s been for a long time.”

Kevin Harvick (29) races through Turn 3 as his 13-year-old son Keelan (62) follows behind in Las Vegas.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.