There is one particular habit that differentiates older Kevin Harvick from the likes of younger Bubba Wallace, William Byron and Chase Elliott.
When the Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 4 driver receives a message and he sees it, he makes sure that he replies to it. And if someone doesn’t intentionally reply to the message, it comes out as disrespectful to the driver.
In The Athletic’s series of interviews with NASCAR drivers, one of their questions was to explain their texting habits. And Harvick’s answer compared to other drivers might come out as a surprise. When asked: “On a scale from one to 10, how good are you at responding to text messages in a timely manner?”, Harvick rated himself as nine and said.
“I think it’s completely disrespectful to not reply to a text message unless you’re asleep.”
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Even with the Cup Series’ busy schedule and two kids to take care of, Harvick says he always finds time to respond in a timely manner.
“If I have a lot, I’ll wake up earlier in the morning so I don’t take time away from my kids. I just feel like it’s sending somebody the middle finger if you don’t respond to them in a timely fashion.”
But that doesn’t happen for the younger drivers in Elliott, Wallace and Byron. The texting habits of these drivers would be what Harvick labeled “disrespectful”.
“I used to feel really bad if I just left a text there for a day or so. But now I’ve been really bad about reading something and then not responding. And then they have to text me again and I’m like, “Oh, shoot. That was important,” Byron said about his texting habits.
As for Elliott, he would like to have a special function in his messaging system so that he is reminded to text the person back.
“I do that a lot, where I forget I’ll read something and I need to get back to someone, but I ended up forgetting because I’ve opened it already. So I wish you could unread it to where you could see. Or have a mark for yourself to go back and take care of whatever you need to take care of,” Elliott said.
Wallace rated himself as two out of ten at replying.
“I’ll give it a two. I’m the worst at reading a text and answering in my head. Or I’ll show Amanda, “Look at this text.” And then I put it down. And then I’ll go to text that person like, “Hey, I need a favor.” And I’m like, “Damn …”
Well, Harvick might be right that it could be disrespectful to people to not reply immediately, but we all have incidents when we forget to reply to people in the rush of moments.
The answer Kevin Harvick gave, versus the answer of the others, is the difference of knowing how to treat people and versus not caring about others! Best guy ever!
I agree with Kevin, but once in a while we forget one. If you are a REPEAT OFFENDER that’s different. I think you need to look at the Person like Chase Elliott#9 is rude, non apologetic, disrespectful individual especially on camera, he avoids answering questions especially when wrong. Bubba Wallace can also be rude most of time.