Harvick: Too soon to tell if RCR improvement good enough to re-sign

BRISTOL, Tenn. While Richard Childress Racing is enjoying a strong start to the 2010 season, including Kevin Harvick atop the Cup series points standings, Harvick said it’s too early to tell whether the improvement is enough to entice him to re-sign with RCR.

“The most important thing to me is that we take that next step – like making the cars better, making the engines better, making everything better,” Harvick said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “We need to keep the competitiveness of the team at the level where it needs to be because everybody is going to continuously get better.

“You can’t always play catch-up; at some point you have to be ahead to win a championship.”

Harvick said, however, it’s too early to tell whether the improvement RCR has enjoyed will last now that teams will move to using rear spoilers instead of wings on car beginning next weekend.

“The hard part is you’ve had five weeks with the wings on the cars. It will be 10 weeks into the season before you really find out where you stack up because of the addition of the spoiler,” he said.

“You’re through the first 26 races and at the Chase before you know where you stack up. In seasons past, you would know by now if you were in trouble.”

Through four races, Harvick has yet to finish worse than ninth. He has already led 70 laps this season; he led 159 in all of 2009.