Kevin Harvick is authoring the most dominant NASCAR season of this century

With five wins in the first 12 races of 2018, Kevin Harvick is on pace to set a new 21st century standard for NASCAR domination.

There was a time, from about mid-March through the end of April, where it looked like the torrid start that Kevin Harvick got off to this season was unsustainable. Six NASCAR Cup Series races in a row went by without the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford in Victory Lane, three of them won by Kyle Busch, enough to suggest that the race for the championship was more up for grabs than it might have first appeared.

The last two weeks have served as a sobering reminder of exactly how good Harvick has been in 2018, maybe even more so because his back-to-back wins at Dover and Kansas came at two very different tracks under completely different circumstances. The 4 was clearly the best car at the Monster Mile, and even when a couple of long runs made Kansas look like it wouldn’t be Harvick’s day, he still found a way to win.

It’s not just the wins that emphasize how great Harvick has been. In 12 starts, he’s finished seventh or better 10 times. His only two substandard results came at Daytona, which is always a crap shoot, and at California, where he had a fast car but got a little too racey with Kyle Larson at the wrong time and essentially knocked himself out of the running. Harvick has led 322 more laps than the next closest driver, and incidentally, only three other drivers have led that many laps on the season.

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A lot can change during the summer in the NASCAR Cup Series over the summer, an adage that has proven true time and time again. It’s a mistake to project Harvick’s numbers over the course of the whole year and just multiply everything by three.

Here’s the thing, though: He can afford to be slightly less impressive and still end 2018 with the most dominant NASCAR performance of the 21st century. Five wins is already enough to tie the season-leading total of the top driver from four different seasons since 2000. The most anyone has had this century is Jimmie Johnson’s 10 in 2007, so Harvick can fall off the pace a bit and still top that.

The century’s best mark for top-10 finishes will be tougher to beat, as Jeff Gordon racked up 30 in 36 races in 2007. Still, the 4 team is on pace to tie that at the moment, and as noted, was likely well on the way to another in California until a bit of untimely aggressiveness.

Certainly, no one is handing Harvick a championship, particularly before the All-Star Race. Kyle Busch is going to have something to say. Several other drivers, including Martin Truex Jr., Harvick’s teammate Clint Bowyer and maybe Ryan Blaney or Joey Logano could take a step forward and be able to race for wins every week. Kyle Larson is potentially just a general “if we figure this Camaro out” away from being a handful.

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With the exception of Rowdy, those are all still “what if” situations. Right now, there’s no catching Harvick most weeks, and his team doesn’t beat itself either. He might not only capture his second NASCAR Cup Series title before 2018 is over, it’s possible he sets a new standard for excellence in the 21st century at age 42, and that would be one impressive accomplishment indeed.