Kevin Harvick Fan in 2014.... Or Not !

       My allegiance to Kevin Harvick among the NASCAR drivers is unquestionable.. I have been one of his most loyal followers when critics and supporters were outspoken on his driving decisions and temper tantrums.. In 2014 he will change car numbers and be driving for a new owner...but that has nothing to do with my quandary.
   Dating back to the early 1980's I have been a fan of the late Dale Earnhardt...Through thick and thin I loved Earnhardt because he was a blue-collar driver that achieved success by working his way up through the ranks...

       The results of Earnhardt speak for themselves.. Seven Championship Titles and sponsors clamoring for his name or likeness on their products,...but in 2001 in all came to an end in the blink of an eye. On the final lap of the Daytona 500, Earnhardt was killed when his car careened into a concrete wall at 190 miles per hour.. Like millions of other fans, I cried for days and had a tough time just talking about the incident. Thanks to television I had the instant replay running non-stop through my mind daily.
   Hours after the accident, team owner Richard Childress had to make a decision on the future of car number three. Sponsors paid big bucks to have their product or names displayed at each race weekend. Childress could have selected another driver with Winston Cup experience, but he picked Kevin Harvick from a lower division of NASCAR to take over the number three car. The number was changed to twenty-nine, but it was the same crew and garage as always.
    The following week Harvick and the #29 team showed up at Rockingham, North Carolina with a solid white car,... he finished 14th in his first race with the big boys of NASCAR. An 8th place finish in his second race...but then he edged out Jeff Gordon at Atlanta to capture the checkered flag in only his third effort at the Winston Cup level of NASCAR,...proving he was a quality driver to be contended with.  I have been with him ever since,..especially when Harvick and Childress insisted on putting the number 3 at the bottom of the 'B' post of the car (B post is midway from the windshield to the back window on each side of the car)...and it has been there ever since.

     Unlike a lot of Dale Earnhardt fans who jumped to another driver simply because he had a similar name, I remained loyal to the same team. If your favorite NFL team loses its quarterback to another team due to free agency, does your loyalty go with him? Absolutely not! I stayed with the same team and told friends my favorite car had two numbers...29 on the door and 3 under the B post.
.... But now we come to the crux of this posting... Harvick will be driving for Stewart-Haas Racing next year and team owner Tony Stewart has given Harvick the number 4 for his car.

        As you can see,..the Budweiser sponsorship will follow Harvick to the new team,..and the color scheme almost looks exactly the same... BUT there is NO #3 on the B post of the car. To make matters even worse, Richard Childress is even talking about giving the number 3 to his grandson, Austin Dillon, who will be moving up from the Nationwide series in 2014. I am at the fork in the road with my decision. If I continue to follow Harvick in the new car, I feel as if I have turned my back on the greatest driver to climb through the window. Childress said at the time of Earnhardt's death that the number 3 would be retired permanently from NASCAR, but I know how he feels in dealing with a grandson,... I have four of them myself.