The new kid in town

But none of those drivers were following a legend, a man so famous and so great that the mere mention of his name transcended the sport of stock car racing into the world of an American icon.

Kevin Harvick's rookie season if one of determination and triumph. He was scheduled to begin his rookie season in NASCAR Winston Cup racing next year, but when Dale Earnhardt was killed in the last turn of the last lap of the Daytona 500 on February 18, Harvick's life changed forever.

He took over the ride that Earnhardt made famous at Richard Childress Racing. And since that time, Harvick has achieved success in a way that would make Earnhardt proud.

When Harvick won his first NASCAR Winston Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in March, it was in the memory of Earnhardt. When Harvick won his second career Winston Cup race in the July 15 Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, the victory was for him.

The 25-year-old Harvick has established himself as one of the best rookie drivers in NASCAR Winston Cup history and his two wins leaves him just one win shy of the record of three rookie wins set by Tony Stewart in 1999. Harvick may only be a rookie, but in that race, he drove like a veteran. In fact, he dominated the race like his predecessor, Earnhardt, used to.

"I don't mind everything being in memory of Dale because everything we do this year is in memory of him," Harvick said. "Dale Earnhardt is the reason we are racing in both series and we want to do the best we can for him. That was our goal, to go out and win as many races as we could. Right now, he would be pretty proud of us running up front and paying attention.

"If somebody had told me I'd have two Winston Cup wins by now, I would have told them I thought they were crazy. Next weekend will be our one-year anniversary for winning our first Busch race. That's a credit to Kevin Hamlin and the organization, teaching me how to race under control."

Considering that Harvick has won two races as a rookie, while he continues to compete on the full Busch Series schedule, imagine how good he will be when he becomes a veteran.

"When we hired him, I said Kevin Harvick is the real deal," said team owner Richard Childress. "We have had some really strong runs. If you see his performance today and yesterday, that answers a lot of questions. Watching his talent through the years, I saw a few things in him that I liked. I knew he had the ability. It was a gut feeling that you knew he would produce. He is very mature for his age and to be put in a difficult situation, he has been able to handle it unbelievable."

Now, Harvick is ready to compete at the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the Brickyard 400. He hopes to become the latest member of the Bakersfield Connection to attempt to achieve glory at a speedway nicknamed The Brickyard.

When Harvick was a youngster growing up in Bakersfield, California, he had a dream of following his hero and one day racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Harvick will realise his dream on August 5, although reality will be a bit different than what he envisioned as a 10-year-old.

"Being from Bakersfield, California, I was a Rick Mears fan," Harvick said of the four-time Indianapolis 500 winner. "Indianapolis was where I wanted to race when I was 10 years old. We raced go-karts with Clint and Casey Mears and my dad worked on the stock cars when Rick and Roger Mears came to Bakersfield and raced the stock cars. I've been around them for a long time and Rick is the one I watched race when I was younger.

"Rick's accomplishments were pretty big, especially coming from Bakersfield at that time. Open wheel was the direction that I wanted to go when I was racing go-karts. My father being in stock car racing and building stock cars, that's not the direction he had in mind. When I turned 16, I didn't have an open-wheel car, I had a stock car. That's what I drove when I turned 16. He would never let me drive an open wheel car. He was scared I was going to get hurt."

Instead of competing in the Indianapolis 500, Harvick will compete in his first Brickyard 400 NASCAR Winston Cup race at the 2.5-mile oval.

Harvick is the latest race driver to find the path from Bakersfield, California to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Rick Mears came to Indy in 1978 and by the time his driving career was over after the 1992 season, he had visited victory lane in the Indy 500 four times.

Rick's older brother, Roger, started in two Indianapolis 500s and was an acclaimed off-road racer. Rick and Roger formed "The Mears Gang" and dominated desert racing for years. Back in Bakersfield, Rick's son, Clint, and Roger's boy, Casey, were actively involved in organized go-kart racing. At that time, the hotshot racer was Kevin Harvick, who started racing go-karts competitively when he was five-years-old.

"Kevin was always racing a class or two ahead of me because he is older than I am," said Casey Mears. "My cousin, Clint, raced against him in go-karts. It was 100cc, local and some national races we ran as well out here in Bakersfield and Fresno, California. I think he raced a lot more areas than I did because I didn't race go-karts that long. I was 11 and 12 at that time and he was 15 and 16.

"There were two or three guys who were real standouts and he was definitely one of them. Him and my cousin went back and forth quite a bit, actually. He was my cousin's main competition in go-karts. He was always someone to watch, that's for sure. He was always quick and noticeably talented. People knew if he got the right opportunities, he would go somewhere."

Usually, Harvick went straight to victory lane after battling Casey Mears on the hot, dusty go-kart tracks in California.

"He was the guy to watch," Casey recalled. "I remember the guy that ran my go-kart team came out and grabbed me one time and said, 'Here, watch this kid' because he could get around the go-kart track fast or faster than anyone else. He was definitely someone you watched and he was definitely someone that all the other go-kart drivers were out to beat because he was one of the fast guys. He was the guy to beat."

Roger Mears is good friends with Mike Harvick, Kevin's father, and remembers the talent the young driver displayed at such an early age.

"I watched that kid come up and I really credit his father for so much of his development," said Roger, who is now the shop foreman for the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates NASCAR Winston Cup team. "His dad was so dedicated to this kid as far as racing goes. His dad even worked with me on one of my stock cars. His dad is a fireman and all of his days off, he would work with his son. His dad is a great guy and he is sharp. A lot of people would love to have him working on their car. I credit a lot of the boy's success to his dad because he really, really worked hard with him.

"He started in go-karts and right away, you could see this kid was fast. He would win races from when he was a little, bitty thing. He would win and win and win. My kids and nephew all raced against him at the local go-kart track in Bakersfield. When he was real young, he went to Mesa-Marin and started racing late model stock cars and he started winning right off the bat in those cars. You could see it; the kid was just good. Night after night, he ran out there and got a lot of experience.

"I couldn't be happier for him to see a kid like that and his dad, two people so dedicated to the sport, to come out of Bakersfield like that is a cool deal."

Young Harvick dreamed of continuing in open wheel cars after his go-kart success. Dad, however, had a different idea that prevailed.

"Things changed when I turned 16 and got in the stock car," Harvick said. "Obviously, I had a different understanding of what was going on in the stock car world. I knew where my dad was coming from. When I was 15 or 16, I think I realised what was going on in the stock car world and that was the direction I needed to go then.

"But, as a little boy, I wanted to an Indy car driver. When I became old enough to understand that my dad worked on stock cars and NASCAR was becoming pretty huge, that was the direction we needed to go. At that point, there wasn't a NASCAR race at Indy yet. I don't think when I wanted to race Indy cars I understood the complete heritage of racing at Indianapolis. When I was old enough to understand everything, I didn't think of racing at Indy any more."

Harvick dominated in the late model division at Mesa-Marin Raceway and was the 1993 NASCAR Late Model Champion at the track. It was obvious he was ready to step up to another division. He joined the Featherlite Southwest Series in 1995, where he was rookie of the year. He moved up to the Winston West Series and became the series champion in 1998.

After spending 1999 in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, Harvick was hired by team owner Richard Childress to drive in the Busch Series last year. He set two Busch series rookie records last year with most points overall (4,113) and most money won ($995,274). He also tied two NASCAR Busch Series rookie records held by Steve Park with most wins (three) and highest final finishing positions (third) on his way to Rookie of the Year honors.

"It's kind of mind-boggling," Harvick said. "It happened quick, it happened the right way and I was lucky to be in the right spot at the right time. I like driving race cars. I think I can do it pretty well and obviously, Richard Childress thought I could do it pretty well. Sometimes, you have to sit back, take a deep breath and realise it could be a lot worse."

Harvick's rise to the top was only beginning. He was set to compete in seven Winston Cup races this year for Childress in a car sponsored by America Online, where he would team up with the team's other two drivers - Earnhardt and Mike Skinner.

That all changed in the final turn of the final lap of the Daytona 500. Childress moved Harvick into Earnhardt's car, which was changed from the familiar black Goodwrench No. 3 to a white Goodwrench No. 29.

"Dale Earnhardt was the best race car driver there will ever be in NASCAR and nobody will ever replace him," Harvick said. "I would hope you don't expect me to replace him because nobody ever will. Dale's death affected me in a big way, but this is a strong organisation. It drew us a lot closer than we already were. Dale Earnhardt was someone I watched since I was five-years old. He was a hero to me."

It was what Harvick did in his third race for the team that is one of the greatest stories in NASCAR Winston Cup history.

Harvick scored his first Winston Cup win in only his third start driving a race car previously driven by a man who made the No. 3 famous. Harvick won the race with two daring three-wide moves, the first on lap 320 when he went to the inside of race leaders Dale Jarrett and Jerry Nadeau and the second on the 321st lap when he dove to the inside to take the lead at the start/finish line.

Harvick is the fifth driver to win in his third career NASCAR Winston Cup start. He joins Bob Flock in 1949, Johnny Mantz in 1950, Bill Norton in 1951 and Dan Gurney in 1963. Johnny Rutherford (1963) and Jim Roper (1949) are the only drivers to win in their first start in NASCAR history.

Harvick's victory is the earliest in a career in the modern era, surpassing Mark Donohue's victory in his fifth race at Riverside, California in 1973.

The driver won in dramatic fashion when he edged Jeff Gordon in a side-by-side battle that ended by about four inches. The margin of victory was 0.006-seconds.

"About halfway down the back straightaway, I asked, 'Who won?'" Harvick recalled. "I didn't expect to win in my third time out. I'm still sitting here wondering if I should jump up or down, or jump off a building. It's a pretty cool feeling to have.

"I took an extra lap afterwards to get the emotional part out of the way, then to pull into victory lane and see all those guys that have put their arms out and supported me through the hardest situation of their life and of my life. Without the support of all those people, it couldn't have happened. The experience we have on this race team has Kevin Harvick up here now."

The original plan was for Harvick to learn from Earnhardt and Skinner this year before becoming their teammate in 2002. Now, Harvick is going to attempt to run the entire Busch Series and Winston Cup schedule in what many consider a Herculean effort.

In fact, Harvick will pull double-duty in Indianapolis by racing in the Kroger 200 at Indianapolis Raceway Park on Saturday night, and then competing in the Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway the following afternoon.

"I'm 25, so I'm used to staying up late," Harvick said. "IRP is a tough track to pass on, but since it has been repaved, I think it is better. I've never really had a problem passing there. It's always been one of my more favorite tracks to race on for the fact it is different, it is unique and you run against the wall and have to do the slide job to get past somebody. We have run well there in the past in the truck and in the Busch car last year.

"It's a challenging race track, but it's unique and I enjoy the different styles of race tracks.

"Aside from racing at Daytona, even racing at Daytona, I don't think there is anywhere any bigger than Indy," Harvick said. "For the years and years of the Indianapolis 500 and the history of the race track, going into it for the first time and driving around it will be an experience I won't forget and one I'm looking forward to."