Still, Harvick didn't hesitate after a dramatic win in the Budweiser Shootout last Saturday when asked if his No. 29 Chevrolet is ready to make a serious run at ending Jimmie Johnson's three-year reign atop NASCAR's premiere circuit.
"I'm not going to sit up here and promise you can we beat the 48 because they've been hard to beat the last three years," Harvick said.
Then, without skipping a beat, he added with a smile "right now we don't think anybody can beat us."
It was the kind of statement Harvick didn't dare make a year ago, when he came to Daytona as defending champion knowing he had little shot at a repeat.
"Last year at this point it was like, 'Man, I hope we can keep up with the draft,"' Harvick said.
Harvick did, but was never a threat to winner Ryan Newman. He qualified 16th and ended up 14th.
It marked the start of a frustrating four months as Richard Childress Racing's longest tenured driver struggled to find any consistency. He went 12 straight races without making the top 10 and was in danger of missing the Chase for the championship for the first time since 2005.
Rather than panic, he simply sent his team back to work and it paid off with the kind of hot stretch that made him the most consistent driver not named Jimmie Johnson down the stretch. Harvick didn't win a race for only the second time in his career, but worked his way into the Chase, where he finished fourth after posting seven top-10s during the sprint to the finish.
Yet his team's surprising surge was overshadowed by a highly publicized scuffle with Carl Edwards before the fall race at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Pictures showed the two grabbing each other days after Harvick made some critical comments of Edwards' driving that led to a wreck at Talladega.
Harvick has done his best to move on, focusing this offseason on fine tuning a team that's finished in the season's top 10 four times in eight years.
Childress switched out a couple of Harvick's crew members, but kept Todd Berrier on as crew chief thinking the No. 29 car wasn't far away from getting to the top after a few near misses.
"I think over the last five years we've had moments of everything that we needed to do, but we just need to put it all in one year," Harvick said. "Last year from Chicago on, we ran in the top 10, top five every week. In 2006 we won a ton of races. (In) 2003 we were consistent (but) just kind of fell behind in the beginning."
He might not fall behind this year after a scarily efficient run during the Shootout. Harvick seemed out of it during the first segment after sustaining some minor damage to a fender but found a little something during the 10-minute intermission.
During the second segment, Harvick simply bided his time waiting for the moment to strike. It didn't escape the notice of Jeff Gordon, who said over the radio late in the race he thought Harvick was playing possum.
Harvick just laughed, saying it just looked like that because the car was taking its time finding the groove. He praised his team for finding a way to win rather than getting frantic when things appeared to be going south.
"We have good chemistry," Harvick said. "I think we're all a lot calmer than we were five years ago and relaxed, really get along well with each other. So I think that means a lot. I think our experience carries us when we're having a bad day. We could have all flipped out and had something crazy happen. But we all kept our heads on, stayed calm, wound up winning the race."
Thanks to a combination of patience and impeccable timing, something Harvick seems to have a knack for at Daytona, Harvick's move to beat McMurray looked awfully familiar. He won the 500 two years ago after roaring up the backstretch on the final lap and beating Mark Martin in a drag race to the finish, escaping a massive wreck that seemingly ate up half the field.
Those last-second heroics have taught Harvick a valuable lesson he grappled with during his early days at RCR: patience. It's something he had in short supply a few years ago, when the prospect of driving in NASCAR's biggest race was almost too much.
"The hardest part is keeping yourself even keel across the board," the 33-year-old Harvick said. "You have to keep a balance until you get to Sunday and understand what goes with the week."
Namely, staying cool, waiting for your shot and making sure you don't miss.
Harvick didn't during the Shootout.
He's hoping to get another one late Sunday night.
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