Cars of NASCAR Stars

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What NASCAR Drivers Have in Their Garages

Although he reaches speeds in excess of 200 mph on the race track, NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick goes slow on the street.

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“Away from the track I’m probably the guy you honk at,” the 33-year-old Kernersville, N.C., resident says. It's quite a contrast to the 180-mile-per-hour speeds NASCAR drivers average at the series’ fastest track, the Talladega Superspeedway, in Talladega, Ala.

“There are so many bad drivers out there that I can’t stand driving on the road,” Harvick says. “Most of the time my wife drives because she thinks I drive too slow.”

She chauffeurs him around in her Cadillac Escalade while his two Chevy Corvette Z06s — among the fastest street-legal production cars General Motors has ever made — sit quietly in the garage.

Though Harvick is not one for tearing up the streets, he’s a burgeoning car collector who owns 15 race cars, most of which are relics of his career wins. “I learned a long time ago that it’s important to keep things that have sentimental value,” he says. “My first truck race, my first Busch win — they’re all kept at a shop in my house. Most of them are under covers.”

In Pictures: What NASCAR Drivers Have in Their Garages

He also owns a 1969 Chevy Camaro in the process of being restored and a 1955 Chevy BelAir that his wife bought him as a nostalgic gift. “That was my first car my dad bought me,” Harvick says. “He thought it was a project that he and I could do. When I wanted a stock race car, he told me we had to get rid of the ’55.”

For just getting around, Harvick prefers his 2008 Chevy Silverado pickup. “I’m kind of a pretty basic person,” he says. “We race go-karts at home, and we’re always throwing something in the back of the truck.”

Split Personalities

2008 Chevrolet Tahoe

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“I’m not a daredevil. I don’t jump out of airplanes. I’m a pretty normal guy,” Burton says. “The street is nowhere for pretending to be a race-car driver. I’ve been in a car wreck on the highway. I would rather wreck a race car at 200 miles per hour than a street car at 40.”

Burton’s everyday vehicle is the polar opposite of a race car: He drives a 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe sport utility vehicle. “I don’t equate what I do on the racetrack to what I do on the highway. I get enough of shifting gears and loud noises on Sunday,” he says, referring to race day. “I like quiet and air conditioning; that means more to me.”

NASCAR drivers’ conservative approach to off-track driving isn’t surprising to auto-racing insiders. “They realize the consequences of making a mistake,” says Larry McReynolds, a Fox Sports race analyst and former NASCAR crew chief for Richard Childress Racing, whose efforts helped propel Dale Earnhardt to his first Daytona 500 victory in 1998. “I bet if you talk to the top 35 drivers, at least half of them are involved in some kind of driver safety program.”

NASCAR, short for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, is the second most-watched sport on national television, according to Nielsen Media Research. Pro football is the only other sport on major television networks to get more ratings.

It started out in 1948 as a sanctioning body to govern races involving mildly modified street cars — hence the term “stock car.” But the sport has come a long way: Elite teams with multi-million-dollar sponsorships race purpose-built machines with only nominal ties to the passenger vehicles after which they’re named. What once started as a pastime in the Southeast has grown to a high-profile — and highly profitable — national phenomenon.

NASCAR driver Ryan Newman with his 1948 Buick Roadmaster

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“The one thing about every driver and every crew chief and owner in the Sprint Cup, the manufacturer supplies them with a vehicle,” Fox’s McReynolds says. “As a crew chief I always had a nice new vehicle, and they swiped them out regularly. It’s almost too much. Every time you get used to something, they change.”

McReynolds does not invest much in cars off the track. These days he drives a 2001 Ford Expedition with 140,000 miles on it. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy driving, but I’m a conservative person and cars are something that depreciate so fast,” he says.

He does know a lot of NASCAR drivers who are car enthusiasts and big collectors, naming Clint Bowyer, Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart. “When Stewart goes to a Barrett Jackson car auction, he is a kid on Christmas morning,” McReynolds says.

For Casey Mears, 30, who drives the No. 5 Kellogg’s Chevrolet Impala SS, his affection for cars dates back to memories of his off-road-racing father Roger Mears. “I’ve always liked cars, period, with my dad racing,” he says. “In 1982, my dad bought a 1923 track roadster, not an original, but built as a hot rod. About 10 years ago, I found it and bought it back. It means a lot to the family.”

His 2008 BMW M5 and motorcycles satisfy a desire for speed off the track, but most days he drives a 2008 Chevy Tahoe. “When I do have time, I love to go for a drive,” Mears says.

An Exotic Streak

A 1991 Ferrari F40 like the one pictured here is NASCAR racer Dario Franchitti's favorite from his collection of more than 15 cars.

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The cars he drives everyday aren’t quite as exotic as the Ferrari F40, but they’re not far off. When he’s not on the track, Franchitti tools around in a 1997 Porsche 911 GT3, which is essentially a racing version of the venerable 911 with just enough equipment to make it street legal; or he hits the street in a 2008 Porsche Cayenne modified by noted aftermarket tuner TechArt. “For a big truck it goes well,” he says.

Franchitti won the Indianapolis 500 last year. Before jumping to NASCAR, he raced completely different sorts of vehicles than stockcars, called open-wheel race cars for the way their wheels are outside the body of the car (they look like missiles with four wheels attached).

The first car he ever raced was a Formula Vauxhall Junior. “I managed to find it and buy it a couple years ago,” he says. That car helped launch his racing career.

Like some of his NASCAR compatriots, Franchitti’s driving sensibilities on and off the track are drastically different. “I think when I was younger, I used to drive a lot quicker on the roads,” he says. “I enjoy the cars you can actually have fun with on the streets, but you can’t have fun with the modern speed limit.”

While fast and sleek sport cars aren’t every NASCAR driver’s desire, what they share is a competitive streak that kicks in trackside — and a keen understanding of what a powerful car can do. “The biggest thing that motivates racecar drivers is competition. You’re not necessarily racing a stopwatch, you’re racing the competition,” McReynolds says.

To read more about the personal cars of some of NASCAR’s top drivers, go to the accompanying slideshow.

In Pictures: What NASCAR Drivers Have in Their Garages