News
Thursday, November 1, 2007

Kevin Harvick Gridlocks Traffic in Houston
By Sydney Davis

It was a pleasant Thursday morning in Houston, Texas, with pleasant meaning the humidity was under 500 percent.

Shell employees, die-hard Kevin Harvick fans and a few other curious onlookers congregated around City Hall to witness Mayor Bob White present Harvick with a proclamation declairing today, November 1, 2007, Kevin Harvick Day in Houston.

Mayor White presented a framed proclamation to Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Shell Chevrolet in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. Shell Corporation is based out of Houston, with their two main office buildings directly across the street from City Hall.

The festivities were complete with free food, giveaways and photo ops for fans.

Local ABC sportscaster Bob Allen got things started emceeing the event. To get the crowd hyped, Shell PR personalities started a chanting match and threw out t-shirts to the eager fans.

Allen introduced Hugh Cooley, one of the men instrumental in bringing Shell and Richard Childress Racing together. He started the introductions with a replay of the final laps of the Daytona 500, where Harvick beat Mark Martin in dramatic fashion to start the 2007 Nextel Cup season.

After making a quick lap around the block, Harvick drove up to the stage and greeted fans. After the mayor presented the proclamation, Childress presented Mayor White with an honorary team jacket.

"You'll be available for tire changes this weekend right?" Childress said jokingly.

Allen followed the presentations with a Q&A session with both Harvick and Childress touching on major topics from the year.

"It's exciting for us to have a sponsor that supports our team like Shell does," Harvick said. "They don't ask questions and are enthusiastic about all aspects of racing."

Harvick thanked all the employees for coming out and for ordering good weather today. We were all happy about that weather order.

Harvick spoke briefly about the season saying they've had competitive cars despite things not always going their way.

"If you told me we were going to win the two biggest races of the year [Daytona 500 and All-Star Challenge], I would have said that it's going to be an exciting year," he said. "This season has been an up and down story, but our team is really good about working hard through the tough times.

"Our biggest challenge this year has been flat tires," he continued with a laugh. "I think we've had seven in the last five races."

He jokingly added at the end that if Denny Hamlin had not been running "that other fuel" during the race at Atlanta, "he wouldn't have had a problem, and there wouldn't have been a big wreck."

It seems like Houstonians now have their own NASCAR Nextel Cup team to cheer for on Sundays. That's probably a good thing, looking as how the Texans have been playing recently.

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