Embed from Getty Images

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As the all-time winningest driver at the ISM Raceway one-miler in Phoenix, Arizona, Kevin Harvick has proven to be the odds-on pick anytime the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race is in town. His career statistics at the track are historic and poised to become more so.

But Harvick enters Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) looking for something equally as important but for remarkably more simple reasons. Last season’s eight-time winner is still winless through three races of 2019. Precedent calls for a victory.

This season he’s earned a pair of top-five finishes in his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang – fourth-place the last two weeks at both Atlanta and Las Vegas. A year ago, however, he showed up in the desert having won those two races and then winning at Phoenix to cap off the first of several trophy strings on the season.

Harvick’s nine wins at ISM Raceway is a total more than double the next best production – fellow Californian Jimmie Johnson’s four. Half of Harvick’s starts – HALF – have resulted in top-five finishes, 16 of them in 32 races. He has 22 top-ten finishes and has led a track best 1,595 laps too.

He’s won seven of the last 13 Phoenix races including, four in a row from November 2013 to March of 2015. The streak snapped in November, 2015 when Harvick finished runner-up.

Not surprisingly, Harvick boasts the top driver rating (111.0) coming into the weekend’s race and his 9.3 average finish is also best in the field. Not surprisingly, he also leads drivers in most laps run among the top-15 (7,216 laps)

A tenth victory on Sunday afternoon would make him one of only six drivers in NASCAR history to win ten times at a single track. Four of them are already NASCAR Hall of Famers (Richard Petty, David Pearson, Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt). The other – Johnson – is a seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion who will be a first-vote Hall of Famer when he retires.

“When we go to Phoenix, we are always going for the win. That’s been a great racetrack for me, personally, and since I’ve been at SHR, it’s become statistically one of our best racetracks as far as win counts go.

“It’s definitely a racetrack that we circle every year where we think we should have an opportunity to win.”

Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 for Stewart Haas Racing

Harvick is coming off a pole position at Las Vegas and trails points leader – and defending champion – Joey Logano by only two points heading to Phoenix.