Grading Ricky Carmichael

NASCAR driver and owner Kevin Harvick was asked about Ricky Carmichael’s progress before the races at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. Carmichael is driving for Kevin Harvick Inc. in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and will be entered in the race at Martinsville this weekend.
Harvick owns teams in the Truck Series and the Nationwide Series in addition to driving at the Sprint Cup Series level for Richard Childress Racing.

“When we started Ricky’s program, we took him to a couple of tests and kind of wanted to evaluate where he was from a drivers standpoint before we even started going down the Truck road,” Harvick said. “He got it; he gets it. He’s a racer and he understands what he’s doing and he’s very well motivated to do the things he needs to do. The good part about Ricky is you don’t have to teach him anything that comes with money, surroundings, life in general. He’s already got that figured out from his career and he has a great foundation for life in general, so the main thing we have to teach Ricky is to get him experience on the racetrack and teach him the things that come with driving the truck.”

The team started with Carmichael racing a limited schedule. But he has performed so well on the track that the team has added some races to his schedule. The Martinsville race was a late addition.
“He got up to speed right off the bat,” Harvick said. “He’s kind of sent us into a tailspin just because he’s been so good at all of the racetracks we’ve taken him to and he’s run in the top 10. Obviously, he’s been run over a couple of times and been in the wrong spot, but for the most part he’s gotten up to speed fast and performed well. We’re trying to fill holes now to try to finish the season. We started with 14 races and added a couple along the way and we’ll continue to do that as long as the sponsorship is found.”