Kevin Harvick circles Joe Gibbs vs. Hendrick as the biggest storyline in NASCAR to open 2024 season

What’s been the biggest storyline of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series campaign thus far? According to Kevin Harvick, it’s the competition between Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing.

On the latest episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, the former NASCAR champion elaborated on why he believes the rivalry between the two teams has been joyous to watch. He believes that’s what 2024 will all boil down to in the end.

“Well, I think that the biggest story is Hendrick versus Gibbs,” Harvick said, choosing from a myriad of potential options. “I think that’s really what it comes down to at this point. They’ve had the the best cars. I think you could add the Toyotas in, at 23XI, to being, you know, the most competitive cars.

“I think that the Gibbs cars have still been consistently better than then at 23XI cars, but the Hendrick cars have, week after week, done what they what they need to do to be competitive.”

Looking back at many of the races throughout 2024, it’s easy to see where Harvick is coming from. Hendrick and Gibbs have routinely made up the class of the field week-in and week-out, and there’s no reason to expect that to change moving forward.

Harvick also touched on the amount of mistakes made on places like pit road from drivers in 2024, but Hendrick versus Gibbs is at the top of his list, and that’s where his focus will continue moving forward.

“So, and I look at, you know, I look at the the amount of mistakes that have been made this year, on pit road or from the drivers, I think everybody’s feeling that edginess and pressure of the situation, of knowing that, when their in position, they’ve got to perform,” Harvick added. “But even last week, I mean, the speeding penalties and penalties on pit road and all of the things, it’s week after week after week. Then the shorter these pitstops get, the more competitive they get, and the more errors that you’re gonna see, because there’s just less and less room for error. So I think Hendrick versus Gibbs, for me, is the competition story.”

There’s already been an underlying rivalry between Denny Hamlin and many of the Hendrick Motorsports drivers, from Kyle Larson to Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman. Moving forward, we’ll see how the competition between the two teams brings out the best in each driver. That’s where Kevin Harvick’s focus will be.