Kevin Harvick Corrects The Narrative, Proves Age Isn't Slowing ...

RICHMOND, Va. — Kevin Harvick’s latest milestone victory in a storied NASCAR Cup Series career was also the perfect counter, a challenge to the sayers of nay who had dismissed the competitive verve of the veteran driver and his Stewart-Haas Racing team.

“It’s kind of like when they put those small boxes in the newspaper where they have to correct their story and you can’t hardly read them,” Harvick said with a smile. “I feel like a lot of you should put those at the bottom of your story. I get great gratification out of that.”

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MORE: Richmond recap | Points standings

The ink reserved for small-print retractions flowed after Harvick’s defiant late surge to win Sunday’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway. The 46-year-old driver, written off to the playoff fringe not that long ago, now has the head of steam from two consecutive victories — an awakening of the sleeping giant just in time to make hay in the 10-race postseason.

The triumph also provided some historical perspective. Reaching his 60th win made him the co-leader among active Cup Series drivers, tied with Kyle Busch. But the big, round number also gave him a closer view of the names ahead of him on the all-time list — Earnhardt, Yarborough, Johnson, Allison, Waltrip, Gordon, Pearson, all the way up to Petty.

In terms of his late-career streak, Harvick also ranks a firm third on the list of all-time wins after age 40. His 29 wins past that age milestone sit behind Lee Petty’s 42 and Bobby Allison’s 38. It also allowed him to invoke the name of Harry Gant, who captivated the NASCAR world in 1991 with his electric four-race win streak — a run of success at age 51 that gave him the nickname “Mr. September.”

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Harvick needed his memory jogged as a reminder of what month it is, and ultimately joked that he might be willing to try “Mr. August” on for size. That said, Harvick indicated that the time to reflect on the scope of his career will come later. Until then, it’s focus forward.

“I’ve always prided myself in trying to be competitive and do what it takes to be competitive and make the sacrifices that it takes to be competitive. But I do enjoy it,” Harvick said. “There’s nothing better than winning. That’s what we do. I don’t know how to really put it all into perspective because it’s just not something that I just stop and really ever look at. I never really stop and say, where are all those 60 wins? The first one is easy. Today is easy to remember. Last week is easy to remember. But if you guys wouldn’t have told me that the last race that we won was at Bristol, I would have argued with you. I would have told you it was Darlington.

“I don’t really look at the numbers. It’s always about — maybe this is a fault of mine, but I think it’s also one of the reasons that we progress forward. But it’s never about what you have done, what the numbers look like. It’s what do we got to do next week, what could we have done better last week, how do we keep this all in perspective.”

RELATED: Where Harvick ranks all-time

The victory celebration also allowed for a brief moment of reflection for Rodney Childers, Harvick’s longtime collaborator as crew chief of Stewart-Haas’ No. 4 Ford team. For Childers, Richmond marked a milestone with his 40th Cup Series win, 37 of which have come since the driver and crew chief first paired up in 2014.

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Childers said he thought back to Victory Lane at Phoenix Raceway early in the 2018 season, just as Harvick had gone on another three-race tear to achieve his 40th win. “I remember that day, and wondering if I would ever get there,” Childers said.

The only wonder now is how many more the two can rack up, now that the 65-race drought is even further in the past.

“It started two months ago, and you could just see everybody — the communication and the confidence and the cars we were building and all that stuff just got better,” Childers said. “It doesn’t take a lot of confidence with our group to make a huge difference.”